Presentation Title
Analyzing temporal shifts in fish call diversity with acoustic methods near Diablo Island, Costa Rica
Abstract
Soniferous fish are increasingly used in acoustic monitoring to study the health and structure of marine communities. Fish produce species-specific sounds with their swim bladder and sonic muscles or with their teeth and bone structures. These sounds are often associated to courtship, spawning, and territorial behaviors. Here, I use an autonomous underwater recorder to study temporal changes in fish acoustic composition of a rocky reef at the Caño Island Biological Reserve off the coast of Costa Rica. The recorder was deployed at a 25 m depth and programmed to record the soundscape continuously in a 24-hour cycle from January to June of 2017. A 1-minute sample was taken every 10 minutes and uploaded to the online platform of ARBIMON for inspection of presence or absence of fish acoustic-species at two time periods: 4:00am-8:00am and 5:00pm-8:00pm. Templates were generated for the most common acoustic fish species to create a pattern-matching algorithm in Arbimon II to determine temporal changes and their contribution to the soundscape. Establishing marine protected areas is urgent, but it is critical to have tools to evaluate their effectiveness and strengthen their capacity. This study provides important information about the long-term changes in the fish community to park rangers at Caño Island Biological Reserve and the local government.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Dr. Laura May-Collado
Status
Undergraduate
Student College
College of Arts and Sciences
Program/Major
Environmental Sciences
Primary Research Category
Biological Sciences
Analyzing temporal shifts in fish call diversity with acoustic methods near Diablo Island, Costa Rica
Soniferous fish are increasingly used in acoustic monitoring to study the health and structure of marine communities. Fish produce species-specific sounds with their swim bladder and sonic muscles or with their teeth and bone structures. These sounds are often associated to courtship, spawning, and territorial behaviors. Here, I use an autonomous underwater recorder to study temporal changes in fish acoustic composition of a rocky reef at the Caño Island Biological Reserve off the coast of Costa Rica. The recorder was deployed at a 25 m depth and programmed to record the soundscape continuously in a 24-hour cycle from January to June of 2017. A 1-minute sample was taken every 10 minutes and uploaded to the online platform of ARBIMON for inspection of presence or absence of fish acoustic-species at two time periods: 4:00am-8:00am and 5:00pm-8:00pm. Templates were generated for the most common acoustic fish species to create a pattern-matching algorithm in Arbimon II to determine temporal changes and their contribution to the soundscape. Establishing marine protected areas is urgent, but it is critical to have tools to evaluate their effectiveness and strengthen their capacity. This study provides important information about the long-term changes in the fish community to park rangers at Caño Island Biological Reserve and the local government.