Abstract:The study of marine soundscapes is an emerging field of research that contributes important information about biological compositions and environmental conditions. The seasonal and circadian soundscape trends of a marine protected area (MPA) in the Mediterranean Sea have been studied for one year using an autonomous acoustic recorder. Frequencies less than 1 kHz are dominated by noise generated by waves and are louder during the winter; conversely, higher frequencies (4–96 kHz) are dominated by snapping shrimp… Show more
“…A soundscape signature potentially distinguishes every habitat type, through the description of the specific properties of the collected sounds (Bertucci et al, 2015). Preliminary descriptions of marine soundscapes are now available for locations in the Pacific (Andrew et al, 2002;Bertucci et al, 2015;Staaterman et al, 2013), Atlantic (Axelrod et al, 1965;Staaterman et al, 2013;Urick et al, 1972), Indian Oceans (Cato, 1976;McCauley, 2011;Parsons et al, 2013) and for the Mediterranean Sea (Buscaino et al, 2016).…”
Acoustic monitoring can provide essential information on marine environments, including insights into ecosystem functioning and marine biodiversity monitoring. However, data on species acoustic behavior and ecoacoustics studies in the Mediterranean Sea are still extremely scarce and this limits our ability to use soundscape features in monitoring studies. Here we present the results of a soundscape investigation conducted on shallow hard bottoms of the Adriatic Sea (Central Mediterranean basin). We report the presence of diverse circadian rhythms recorded in two different months, July and September. A power spectral density (PSD) was used to assess the overall spectral composition over time, and the Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI), was identified as a proxy for marine sounds of biological origin. The dominant component of the biological soundscape was composed of snapping shrimps and fishes. Spectral characteristics varied significantly both daily and between the two months. For frequencies >620 Hz (i.e., associated to snapping shrimp activity), both PSD and ACI were higher in July than in September. The same circadian rhythm was reported in both sampling periods, with the presence of snaps for 24h a day, but with significantly lower intensity during daylight hours and pitches at the beginning and ending of the night. At lower frequencies (i.e., <620 Hz), fish vocalizations mostly occurred during the night. Higher values of ACI were recorded during the night in both months, whereas the presence of anthropogenic noise caused opposite results in PSD levels. Noise was associated with higher PSD and ACI at the peak frequency of the snaps, suggesting a stimulation in snapping activity. Our findings provide new insights on the marine biological soundscape and on the potential use of ecoacoustics in future monitoring programs.
“…A soundscape signature potentially distinguishes every habitat type, through the description of the specific properties of the collected sounds (Bertucci et al, 2015). Preliminary descriptions of marine soundscapes are now available for locations in the Pacific (Andrew et al, 2002;Bertucci et al, 2015;Staaterman et al, 2013), Atlantic (Axelrod et al, 1965;Staaterman et al, 2013;Urick et al, 1972), Indian Oceans (Cato, 1976;McCauley, 2011;Parsons et al, 2013) and for the Mediterranean Sea (Buscaino et al, 2016).…”
Acoustic monitoring can provide essential information on marine environments, including insights into ecosystem functioning and marine biodiversity monitoring. However, data on species acoustic behavior and ecoacoustics studies in the Mediterranean Sea are still extremely scarce and this limits our ability to use soundscape features in monitoring studies. Here we present the results of a soundscape investigation conducted on shallow hard bottoms of the Adriatic Sea (Central Mediterranean basin). We report the presence of diverse circadian rhythms recorded in two different months, July and September. A power spectral density (PSD) was used to assess the overall spectral composition over time, and the Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI), was identified as a proxy for marine sounds of biological origin. The dominant component of the biological soundscape was composed of snapping shrimps and fishes. Spectral characteristics varied significantly both daily and between the two months. For frequencies >620 Hz (i.e., associated to snapping shrimp activity), both PSD and ACI were higher in July than in September. The same circadian rhythm was reported in both sampling periods, with the presence of snaps for 24h a day, but with significantly lower intensity during daylight hours and pitches at the beginning and ending of the night. At lower frequencies (i.e., <620 Hz), fish vocalizations mostly occurred during the night. Higher values of ACI were recorded during the night in both months, whereas the presence of anthropogenic noise caused opposite results in PSD levels. Noise was associated with higher PSD and ACI at the peak frequency of the snaps, suggesting a stimulation in snapping activity. Our findings provide new insights on the marine biological soundscape and on the potential use of ecoacoustics in future monitoring programs.
“…5). We believe this large level is not Marine Ecology Acoustic indices to differentiate benthic biophonies, Lossent et al, 2018 Progress DOI: 10.3354/meps12370 Series created by shipping in the bay of la Revellata, but rather by the sound of breaking waves (nearshore surf noise) and the chorus of several fish species (Buscaino et al 2016). Beyond 1500 Hz, the spectra deviate positively from Wenz's model by at least 20 dB with respect to the average wind regime during data collection ( in Fig.…”
Coastal soundscapes are dominated by broadband transient sounds primarily emitted by benthic invertebrates. These sounds are characterized by a very large dynamic of amplitude. The loudest ones propagate further and interfere with the detectability of benthic sounds by invading other more distant habitats. Acoustic diversity assessment is therefore biased when applying acoustic indices related to the signal's power. Here, we propose new acoustic indices (IDSS: indices of the diversity of spectral shape) capable of extracting the diversity of the benthic invertebrate biophony (BIB) despite interference from loud and abundant sounds. A passive acoustic ecological survey was conducted in a shallow Mediterranean bay with a small-scale mosaic of biocenosis. The sound pressure level and spectrum of the BIB revealed that the rocky fringe had the most powerful biophony, propagating up to 3680 m, thus 'invading' other habitats. However, these power-based indices failed to depict BIB diversity. The IDSS allowed us to discriminate BIB diversity despite the interfering rocky fringe biophony, including low-power sounds not depicted by traditional power-based methods. Four main categories of benthic invertebrates sounds (BIS) spectra were found. Two categories (high-power, peak frequencies ~3 to 4 kHz) were mainly linked to the rocky fringe. Their contribution to the diversity (56%) decreased with increasing distance to the fringe, where low-power BIS (peak frequencies above 15 kHz) predominantly contributed to the BIB (42%) and may be specific to coralligenous reefs. The IDSS enables a better characterization and quantification of BIB diversity and soundscape structure with a fine spatial resolution (~200 m).
“…Acoustic indices can measure overall amplitude of a recording ( M, Depraetere et al., ), diversity of frequency with the spectral entropy index ( H f ; Sueur, Pavoine, et al., ), or the acoustic diversity index (Villanueva‐Rivera, Pijanowski, Doucette, & Pekin, ) or acoustic complexity index (Pieretti et al., ). These indices have been applied to various terrestrial and marine environments (Buscaino et al., ; Fuller et al., ; Gasc Sueur, Jiguet et al., ) and to detect variation in biodiversity patterns relating to different levels of urbanisation (Kuehne et al., ) or different ecosystems (Depraetere et al., ). Most of these indices are built into free access R packages such as seewave (Sueur, Aubin, & Simonis, ) or soundecology (Villanueva‐Rivera, Pijanowski, & Villanueva‐Rivera, ).…”
Section: How To Undertake Pam In Freshwatermentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Acoustic indices can also be used to detect and contrast acoustic communities sampled in different habitat types or at different times (Buscaino et al., ; Gasc, Sueur, Pavoine, et al., ; Retamosa Izaguirre, Ramírez‐Alán, & De la O Castro, ; Rodriguez et al., ). Acoustic indices have also been applied in freshwater streams with some success; for example, Linke, Decker, et al.…”
Section: How To Undertake Pam In Freshwatermentioning
Biodiversity in freshwater habitats is decreasing faster than in any other type of environment, mostly as a result of human activities. Monitoring these losses can help guide mitigation efforts. In most studies, sampling strategies predominantly rely on collecting animal and vegetal specimens. Although these techniques produce valuable data, they are invasive, time‐consuming and typically permit only limited spatial and temporal replication. There is need for the development of complementary methods.
As observed in other ecosystems, freshwater environments host animals that emit sounds, either to communicate or as a by‐product of their activity. The main freshwater soniferous groups are amphibians, fish, and macroinvertebrates (mainly Coleoptera and Hemiptera, but also some Decapoda, Odonata, and Trichoptera). Biophysical processes such as flow or sediment transport also produce sounds, as well as human activities within aquatic ecosystems.
Such animals and processes can be recorded, remotely and autonomously, and provide information on local diversity and ecosystem health. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an emerging method already deployed in terrestrial environments that uses sounds to survey environments. Key advantages of PAM are its non‐invasive nature, as well as its ability to record autonomously and over long timescales. All these research topics are the main aims of ecoacoustics, a new scientific discipline investigating the ecological role of sounds.
In this paper, we review the sources of sounds present in freshwater environments. We then underline areas of research in which PAM may be helpful emphasising the role of PAM for the development of ecoacoustics. Finally, we present methods used to record and analyse sounds in those environments.
Passive acoustics represents a potentially revolutionary development in freshwater ecology, enabling continuous monitoring of dynamic bio‐physical processes to inform conservation practitioners and managers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.