How the noises could affect marine food webs? A lack of zooplankton’s studies.

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the effects of noise pollution on marine ecosystems. To date, these works mainly focus on hearing species, especially fish and mammals. Because these species are generally at the upper trophic levels, key species from lower levels, like zooplankton species, are less studied under noise effects. Zooplankton is already used as bioindicators, to understand fluxes, ecological dynamics and global change effects; however, it remains a lack of knowledge on the effect of noise. Previous works demonstrate that they could detect vibrations. Consequently, noise is susceptible to affect the perception of their environment and to induce stress. Combining their short life cycle, their phylogenetic and ecological diversity, zooplankton could be useful organisms to understand a diversity of noise effects. They can be used to study the effects at individual scales as modifications of physiology, development, and behavior. Responses, that could change species interactions and population dynamics, are expected to lead to larger scale implications (i.e., alterations of food webs dynamics and ecosystem functioning). Here, we bring out, from studies in ecology, ecotoxicology, and parasitology, methods that can be adapted to our current questions. We might expect further development of acoustic studies on zooplankton, in order to better apprehend how anthropogenic noises affect marine environments.

No evidence for an effect of chronic boat noise on the fitness of reared water fleas

“…This study investigated the effect of exposure to chronic boat noise on the fitness of the water flea Daphnia magna . Contrary to what expected, no effect on the survival and fecundity parameters was observed, which differs from results obtained with exposure to another type of chronic noise (Prosnier, Rojas, Valéro, et al, 2022). Such difference in the results might be due to variations in the temporal and spectral features of the noise.…”

“…Our results are also opposite to those of Prosnier, Rojas, Valéro, et al (2022), where an exposition to a continuous broadband noise leads to a counter-intuitive increase in D. magna ’s fitness, with higher survival and greater clutch size. Here, although boat noise had no statistical effect on the survival and fecundity parameters, there was a tendency for a higher total offspring production with noise, which would be consistent with the results of Prosnier, Rojas, Valéro, et al (2022). However, at a population scale, the Euler-Lotka equation suggests a tendency for a lower growth when exposed to boat noise due to a shorter generational time.…”

“…The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of chronic exposure to motorboat noise (intermittent and random noise with spectral variability) on the fitness of the water flea Daphnia magna , a common zooplankton species widely used in ecotoxicology (Ebert, 2022). Previous studies found no change in their mobility when exposed to acute noise (Sabet et al, 2015, 2019), whereas prior experiment with chronic exposure to broadband noise (i.e., a continuous noise) showed alterations in both fitness and behaviour (Prosnier, Rojas, Valéro, et al, 2022). If arthropods react like fish, then intermittent boat noises (i.e., unpredictable) should be more impactful than continuous broadband noise (i.e., predictable).…”

“…Although the effects of noise on large invertebrates, such as decapods or bivalves, have recently received substantial interest (see the reviews of Popper et al (2001) and Solé et al (2023)), research largely neglected zooplanktonic invertebrates (Hawkins et al, 2015; Prosnier, 2022; Vereide & Kühn, 2023), despite their ecological importance and general use as bioindicators in ecotoxicology (Parmar et al, 2016). Although zooplankton do not possess hearing structures, they present mechanoreceptors that allow them to detect particle motion, the other component of a sound with pressure (Gassie et al, 1993; Buskey et al, 2002).…”

“…Consequently, motorboat noise should affect the fitness of D. magna . Absence to negative effects are expected according to various chronic and acute exposure experiments on invertebrates (Solé et al, 2023), but note that a positive effect was found for D. magna chronically exposed to broadband noise (Prosnier, Rojas, Valéro, et al, 2022).…”