Ambient noise levels as an indicator of marine community health: a comparison of protected vs non-protected Areas
Murphy, Meghan
Murphy, Meghan
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Abstract
Noise generated by healthy marine communities appear to influence larval settlement and adult habitat selection in fish, lobsters, and several species of crustaceans. This relationship between natural noise and habitat healthiness provides a straightforward approach to evaluate Marine Protected Areas success in preserving biodiversity. Here, we used an acoustic network of underwater recorders deployed in Costa Rica and Panama between 2019 and 2020 inside marine protected and non-protected areas. We used RFCxARBIMON soundscape tools to calculate the distribution of acoustic events by time of day and frequency bin, and use the program dBWav to calculate nose levels (dB Root-Mean-Square). We predict that if these MPAs are protecting their marine biodiversity they will have greater values of acoustic activity and biological noise levels than non-protected areas. This study provides the first assessment of this nature for this area and can have important implications in mitigating human activities in MPAs.
Description
Undergraduate
Date
2021-01-01