Limiting motorboat noise on coral reefs boosts fish reproductive success

Abstract

Anthropogenic noise impacts are pervasive across taxa, ecosystems and the world. Here, we experimentally test the hypothesis that protecting vulnerable habitats from noise pollution can improve animal reproductive success. Using a season-long field manipulation with an established model system on the Great Barrier Reef, we demonstrate that limiting motorboat activity on reefs leads to the survival of more fish offspring compared to reefs experiencing busy motorboat traffic. A complementary laboratory experiment isolated the importance of noise and, in combination with the field study, showed that the enhanced reproductive success on protected reefs is likely due to improvements in parental care and offspring length. Our results suggest noise mitigation could have benefits that carry through to the population-level by increasing adult reproductive output and offspring growth, thus helping to protect coral reefs from human impacts and presenting a valuable opportunity for enhancing ecosystem resilience.

Anthropogenic and biological sound effects on the maternal care behavior of a key crab species

“…However, no previous studies were conducted on crustaceans to test the effect of anthropogenic sound on behaviors that involve a direct impact on fitness, such as maternal care with important consequences in the offspring survival. In contrast, the effect of noise on parental care behavior was demonstrated in fishes (Picciulin et al, 2010;Nedelec et al, 2016;Nedelec et al, 2017;McCloskey et al, 2020;Nedelec et al, 2022).…”

How chronic anthropogenic noise can affect wildlife communities

“…The few studies that investigated this have shown mixed results. While white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) reverted back to low frequency songs (Derryberry et al, 2020) and spiny chromis (Acanthochromis polyacanthus) larvae had increased survival rates (Nedelec et al, 2022) in quieted conditions, juniper and pinyon seedling recruitment did not recover following the removal of noise (Phillips et al, 2021). The persistence of effects might depend on the time it takes for the effect to reverse, as well as the behavioral plasticity of the affected species.…”

Anthropogenic noise pollution and wildlife diseases

“…site occupancy, territorial and reproductive behaviour, and stress metabolism) and species interactions (e.g. through feeding efficiency or hiding tendency) that can ultimately affect population dynamics and community composition [4,5]. Accordingly, noise pollution is causing an 'acoustic climate change', likely to alter ecosystem functioning [6,7] and, as such, is gaining increased attention among resource managers and policy makers [8][9][10][11].…”

“…Cavitation can reduce survival of free-living parasite stages [56,57], although, the role of cavitation sound in this is not yet investigated. Nevertheless, pistol shrimps are able to stun their tiny aquatic prey by cavitation sound [58], and there are multiple studies on zooplankton, which report reduced survival [59], retarded development, and higher rates of malformations [5,60] through noise impacts.…”

“…Noise pollution may reduce fitness for uninfected hosts -through mating with low-quality mates -and the overall population by enhancing parasite transmission and reproductive consequences of being infected. Parasite infections [96] and noise [5] can have negative impacts on reproductive outputs with delayed or reduced reproductive investments. At the same time, noise pollution can disturb foraging and thereby reduce parental investment [97] in species with parental care, which may be especially the case for infected individuals that already have higher energetic demands because of their infection.…”