skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Sounds of a changing sea: Temperature drives acoustic output by dominant biological sound-producers in shallow water habitats
Title: Sounds of a changing sea: Temperature drives acoustic output by dominant biological sound-producers in shallow water habitats
The ocean’s soundscape is fundamental to marine ecosystems, not only as a source of sensory information critical to many ecological processes but also as an indicator of biodiversity and habitat health. Yet, little is known about how ecoacoustic activity in marine habitats is altered by environmental changes such as temperature. The sounds produced by dense colonies of snapping shrimp dominate temperate and tropical coastal soundscapes worldwide and are a major driver broadband sound pressure level (SPL) patterns. Field recordings of soundscape patterns from the range limit of a snapping shrimp distribution showed that rates of snap production and associated SPL were closely positively correlated to water temperature. Snap rates changed by 15-60% per °C change in regional temperature, accompanied by fluctuations in SPL between 1-2 dB per °C. To test if this relationship was due to a direct effect of temperature, we measured snap rates in controlled experiments using two snapping shrimp species dominant in the Western Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico ( Alpheus heterochaelis and A. angulosus ). Snap rates were measured for shrimp held at different temperatures (across 10-30 °C range, with upper limit 2°C above current summer mean temperatures) and under different social groupings. Temperature had a significant effect on shrimp snap rates for all social contexts tested (individuals, pairs, and groups). For individuals and shrimp groups, snap production more than doubled between mid-range (20°C) and high (30°C) temperature treatments. Given that snapping shrimp sounds dominate the soundscapes of diverse habitats, including coral reefs, rocky bottoms, seagrass, and oyster beds, the strong influence of temperature on their activity will potentially alter soundscape patterns broadly. Increases in ambient sound levels driven by elevated water temperatures has ecological implications for signal detection, communication, and navigation in key coastal ecosystems for a wide range of organisms, including humans.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2024077
PAR ID:
10461804
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Frontiers in Marine Science
Volume:
9
ISSN:
2296-7745
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; (, Royal Society Open Science)
    The_Royal_Society_Publishing (Ed.)
    Coral reefs, hubs of global biodiversity, are among the world’s most imperilled habitats. Healthy coral reefs are characterized by distinctive soundscapes; these environments are rich with sounds produced by fishes and marine invertebrates. Emerging evidence suggests these sounds can be used as orientation and settlement cues for larvae of reef animals. On degraded reefs, these cues may be reduced or absent, impeding the success of larval settlement, which is an essential process for the maintenance and replenishment of reef populations. Here, in a field-based study, we evaluated the effects of enriching the soundscape of a degraded coral reef to increase coral settlement rates.Porites astreoideslarvae were exposed to reef sounds using a custom solar-powered acoustic playback system.Porites astreoidessettled at significantly higher rates at the acoustically enriched sites, averaging 1.7 times (up to maximum of seven times) more settlement compared with control reef sites without acoustic enrichment. Settlement rates decreased with distance from the speaker but remained higher than control levels at least 30 m from the sound source. These results reveal that acoustic enrichment can facilitate coral larval settlement at reasonable distances, offering a promising new method for scientists, managers and restoration practitioners to rebuild coral reefs. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; (, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America)
    Decadal variations of ocean soundscapes are intricately linked to large-scale climatic and economic fluctuations. This study draws on over 15 years of acoustic recordings at six sites within the Southern California Bight, investigating interannual, seasonal, and diel variations. By examining acoustic energy from fin and blue whales along with sounds from ships and wind, we identified changes in soundscape over time and space. This study reveals that sound levels associated with both biological and non-biological sound sources varied seasonally and correlated with large-scale climatic patterns and long-term oceanographic fluctuations. Baleen whale sound levels before, during, and after a marine heatwave were assessed; sound levels decreased in southern sites and increased in northern sites adjacent to the California Current, underscoring the potential for range shifts and habitat compression during warm years for these species. Ship-generated sound levels at high-traffic sites reflected economic events such as recessions, labor shortages and negotiations, and changes to port activities. Marine soundscapes offer an approach to assess the ocean's condition amid ongoing climatic and economic fluctuations. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; (, Ecology)
    Abstract Acoustic recordings of soundscapes are an important category of audio data that can be useful for answering a variety of questions, and an entire discipline within ecology, dubbed “soundscape ecology,” has risen to study them. Bird sound is often the focus of studies of soundscapes due to the ubiquitousness of birds in most terrestrial environments and their high vocal activity. Autonomous acoustic recorders have increased the quantity and availability of recordings of natural soundscapes while mitigating the impact of human observers on community behavior. However, such recordings are of little use without analysis of the sounds they contain. Manual analysis currently stands as the best means of processing this form of data for use in certain applications within soundscape ecology, but it is a laborious task, sometimes requiring many hours of human review to process comparatively few hours of recording. For this reason, few annotated data sets of soundscape recordings are publicly available. Further still, there are no publicly available strongly labeled soundscape recordings of bird sounds that contain information on timing, frequency, and species. Therefore, we present the first data set of strongly labeled bird sound soundscape recordings under free use license. These data were collected in the Northeastern United States at Powdermill Nature Reserve, Rector, Pennsylvania, USA. Recordings encompass 385 minutes of dawn chorus recordings collected by autonomous acoustic recorders between the months of April through July 2018. Recordings were collected in continuous bouts on four days during the study period and contain 48 species and 16,052 annotations. Applications of this data set may be numerous and include the training, validation, and testing of certain advanced machine‐learning models that detect or classify bird sounds. There are no copyright or propriety restrictions; please cite this paper when using materials within. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; (, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America)
    Coral reef soundscapes are increasingly studied for their ecological uses by invertebrates and fishes, for monitoring habitat quality, and to investigate effects of anthropogenic noise pollution. Few examinations of aquatic soundscapes have reported particle motion levels and variability, despite their relevance to invertebrates and fishes. In this study, ambient particle acceleration was quantified from orthogonal hydrophone arrays over several months at four coral reef sites, which varied in benthic habitat and fish communities. Time-averaged particle acceleration magnitudes were similar across axes, within 3 dB. Temporal trends of particle acceleration corresponded with those of sound pressure, and the strength of diel trends in both metrics significantly correlated with percent coral cover. Higher magnitude particle accelerations diverged further from pressure values, potentially representing sounds recorded in the near field. Particle acceleration levels were also reported for boat and example fish sounds. Comparisons with particle acceleration derived audiograms suggest the greatest capacity of invertebrates and fishes to detect soundscape components below 100 Hz, and poorer detectability of soundscapes by invertebrates compared to fishes. Based on these results, research foci are discussed for which reporting of particle motion is essential, versus those for which sound pressure may suffice. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; (, Aquatic Biology)
    Coral reefs comprise some of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet. These ecosystems face a range of stressors, making quantifying community assemblages and potential changes vital to effective management. To understand short- and long-term changes in biodiversity and detect early warning signals of decline, new methods for quantifying biodiversity at scale are necessary. Acoustic monitoring techniques have proven useful in observing species activities and biodiversity on coral reefs through aggregate approaches (i.e. energy as a proxy). However, few studies have ground-truthed these acoustic analyses with human-based observations. In this study, we sought to expand these passive acoustic methods by investigating biological sounds and fish call rates on a healthy reef, providing a unique set of human-confirmed, labeled acoustic observations. We analyzed acoustic data from Tektite Reef, St. John, US Virgin Islands, over a 2 mo period. A subset of acoustic files was manually inspected to identify recurring biotic sounds and quantify reef activity throughout the day. We found a high variety of acoustic signals in this soundscape. General patterns of call rates across time conformed to expectations, with dusk and dawn showing important and significantly elevated peaks in soniferous fish activity. The data reflected high variability in call rates across days and lunar phases. Call rates did not correspond to sound pressure levels, suggesting that certain call types may drive crepuscular trends in sound levels while lower-level critical calls, likely key for estimating biodiversity and behavior, may be missed by gross sound level analyses. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email