Temporal trends in cusk eel sound production at a proposed US wind farm site

Abstract

Many marine organisms produce sound during key life history events. Identifying and tracking these sounds can reveal spatial and temporal patterns of species occurrence and behaviors. We describe the temporal patterns of striped cusk eel Ophidion marginatum calls across approximately 1 yr in Nantucket Sound, MA, USA, the location of a proposed offshore wind energy installation. Stereotyped calls typical of courtship and spawning were detected from April to October with clear diel, monthly, and seasonal patterns. Acoustic energy increased in the evenings and peaked during crepuscular periods, with the dusk call levels typically higher in energy and more rapid in onset than those from near-dawn periods. Increased call energy and substantial overlap of calls during certain periods suggest that many cusk eels were often calling simultaneously. Call energy (measured in energy flux density) peaked in July and patterns followed seasonal changes in sunrise and sunset. Sound levels were high (over 150 dB re 1 µPa 2 s) during the summer, indicating that this cusk eel population is a substantial contributor to the local soundscape. The stereotyped cusk eel signals and clear temporal energy patterns potentially provide a bioacoustic signal that can be used to monitor changes to the local environment and its soundscape.

Development and sexual dimorphism of the sonic system in three deep-sea neobythitine fishes and comparisons between upper mid and lower continental slope

“…Most work on ophidiid sonic anatomy and sound production has utilized shallow-water species of the subfamily Ophidiinae (Rose, 1961;Courtenay, 1971;Sprague and Luczkovich, 2001;Parmentier et al, 2006aParmentier et al, , 2006bParmentier et al, , 2006cParmentier et al, , 2010Fine et al, 2007;Nguyen et al, 2008;Kever et al, 2014Kever et al, , 2015Mooney et al, 2016). Although conservative externally (Nielsen et al, 1999), various Ophidiinae species have a number of unusual morphological adaptations for sound production including antagonistic muscle pairs, a swimbladder that in some species secretes a lima-bean shaped rocker bone at its rostral end for sonic muscle attachment (Parmentier et al, 2008), and a neural arch above the first vertebra capable of pivoting in the rostral-caudal plane (Fine et al, 2007).…”

“…Species with slow muscles produce a single pulse per contraction, and contraction rate does not determine frequency within a pulse (Fine et al, 2007;Parmentier et al, 2010Parmentier et al, , 2016Mok et al, 2011;Parmentier and Fine 2016). For instance the cusk-eel Ophidion marginatum (subfamily Ophidiinae) produces sounds composed of one to 27 pulses with a peak frequency of about 1200 Hz (Mann et al, 1997;Sprague and Luczkovich, 2001; Rountree and Bowers-Altman, 2002;Mooney et al, 2016). This peak frequency is too high to be produced by individual contractions of superfast sonic muscles, suggesting a slow-muscle mechanism.…”

Listening forward: approaching marine biodiversity assessments using acoustic methods

“…If such species are not widely or uniformly distributed, then their contribution to local soundscapes, and therefore potentially the applicability of that soundscape to estimate diversity, is limited to the detection range. By contrast, high-amplitude cetacean and fish signals generated in deeper water may propagate great distances and dominate soundscapes [ 54 , 193 , 194 ]. Initial soundscape studies showed differences between soundscapes separated by several kilometres [ 89 , 93 , 195 ], and more recent efforts have noted that reefs separated by just a few hundred metres may vary [ 149 ].…”

Consistency of spatiotemporal sound features supports the use of passive acoustics for long‐term monitoring

“…In recent years, passive acoustic monitoring has been used as a non‐invasive method to identify and monitor natural populations of fishes over long periods of time by using sound production as a reliable natural indicator to detect fish aggregation sites or to follow seasonal activities of soniferous species (Luczkovich et al ., ; Luczkovich, Mann & Rountree, ; Bertucci et al ., ). This method has thus become a useful tool for the study of protected fishes and appears valuable for conservation efforts as monitoring sound production may support investigating different aspects of the biology of fishes (Hernandez et al ., ; Montie, Vega & Powell, ; Ruppé et al ., ; Mooney et al ., ). However, these studies are generally restricted to narrow regions and are time restricted.…”