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Potential effects of noise on fish

Photo by Tony Hawkins

Francis Juanes Department of Biology University of Victoria

Rodney Rountree, UMass

Potential effects of noise on fish

• Sound production in fishes? • How, why

• Applied uses of fish sounds • Sound detection (hearing) • Potential effects of noise

Fish produce sounds? • So far >700 vocal species worldwide

Fish sounds: simple vs complex

How do fish make sound? •  Stridulation – rubbing or scrapping

together of fins, bones, or teeth

How do fish make sound? •  Air passage – little understood internal

movement of air, or escape of air through mouth, gills, or anus

How do fish make sound? • Drumming – special

muscles pushing/pulling on the internal air/swim bladder (called sonic muscles)

Why/when are fish vocal?

"  Spawning and courtship behaviour "  Aggression and territorial behaviour "  Distress "  Predator/prey behaviour?

Male cod display larger drumming muscles

Rowe & Hutchings 04

Dru

mm

ing

mus

cle

mas

s (g

)

Somatic mass (g)

females males

Male cod display larger drumming muscles at spawning time

Rowe & Hutchings 03

Dru

mm

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mus

cle

inde

x

Male cod drumming muscles are correlated with body condition

Rowe & Hutchings 03

Dru

mm

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mus

cle

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Body condition index

Male cod drumming muscles are correlated with fertilization potential

Rowe & Hutchings 03

Dru

mm

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mus

cle

inde

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Fertilization potential index

Haddock Courtship Behaviour

Pulse Repetition rate changes at each stage of courtship

Hawkins

Male Solitary Display

Hawkins

Sounds During Solitary Display

Hawkins

Male Flaunting to Female

Hawkins

Some

Aggressive behaviour: gadids

How do we study fish sounds? •  Passive acoustics •  Technologies that enable us to listen to and

record ambient underwater sounds •  Only recently used as a tool for the census

and exploration of marine life

Advantages of passive acoustics

•  Non-invasive •  Non-visual (light not needed) •  Continuous remote monitoring •  Provides detailed behavioral information

hydrophone

Phil Lobel, BUMP

In situ underwater recording

Institute ofInstitute of MarineMarine ResearchResearch

Underwater bottle of anodised aluminium

Surface BuoyKevlar cable

Radio link

Base station

Remote-controlled instrument platform for synchronous recording of behaviour specific

fish sound and video observations

Jan Tore Øvredal

Remote recording

Jan Tore Øvredal, Inst. Of Marine Res., Norway

At Sea Sampling in Norway

Tony Hawkins

Nomad

100 feet of cable Rechargeable 9-volt

batteries

Temperature logger

Hydrophone

Rechargeable 6-volt battery

Portable hydrophone unit

SMAST Pier

AULS (Autonomous underwater listening stations)

ROVs

ISIS Video System

Ecological uses of fish sounds

Study of Underwater Noise Effects Identify noise source and levels Quantify temporal and spatial patterns in noise Quantify noise impact on fish behavior

Examine fish interactions with fishing gear

Determine when fish are vocal

Predator/prey interactions Foraging Territorial defense

Spawning behavior Season

and Time of day

Locate vocal fishes Identify essential fish habitat (EFH) Locate spawning habitats/locations Exploration of the seas/Census of marine life

Rountree & Juanes

Black Drum, Pogonias cromis

Red Drum, Sciaenops ocellata

Weakfish, Cynoscion regalis

Case Studies: Sciaenid (drum fishes) Research

Grant Gilmore

Mapping estuarine

spawning areas

Grant Gilmore

O N D J F M A M J J A S

SEATROUT

RED DRUM

SILVER PERCH

WEAKFISH

BLACK DRUM

MONTH

Mapping spawning seasons

Grant Gilmore

"  Range extension Discovery of striped cusk-eel in Cape Cod

waters, where they were formally unknown despite a long history of biological sampling, demonstrates the usefulness of even low-budget, low-tech passive acoustic methods as a survey and exploration tool.

"  Reproductive Ecology Striped cusk-eels call in a chorus just after

sunset. The chorus time closely tracks the time of sunset through the summer. "  Noise Pollution

The impact of boat noise on spawning chorus behavior needs further study

Cal

Toadfish Call 1 Call 2

Call 3 Call 4

Call 5

Call 6 Cusk eel

Cusk-eel calls

Response of cusk-eel to boat noise

Seasonal Pattern in Chorus Time

18:1418:43

19:1219:40

20:09

20:3821:07

21:36

22:04

22:3323:02

5/24/2002 6/13/2002 7/3/2002 7/23/2002 8/12/2002 9/1/2002 9/21/2002 10/11/2002Date

Tim

e

Sunset Climax Onset Offset

Seasonal pattern of chorus time

SunsetOnsetPeak

Offset

Percentage of Boat Noise For Each Two Minute Sample

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

12:00 AM 4:48 AM 9:36 AM 2:24 PM 7:12 PM 12:00 AM

Time

Perce

ntage

0%5%

10%15%20%25%30%35%40%45%

Perce

ntage

of Bo

at No

ise of

Toatl

Minute

s Re

corded

sunrise day sunset night

Time of Day

Percentage of Boat Noise According to Time of Day

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Perce

ntage

of Bo

at No

ise

12:01AM 3:01AM

6:01AM9:01AM

12:01PM3:01PM

6:01PM9:01PM

Time Interval

Percantage of Boat Noise at Different times of the Day

Prevalence of boat noise by time of day

Case study: Cusk-eels Ophidion marginatum, (Ophidiidae)

"  Offshore Technology "  Cooperative Fisheries: Cliff Goudey (MIT Sea Grant) Francis Juanes and Rodney Rountree (UMASS) have developed low-cost Autonomous Underwater Listening Stations (AULS) suitable for deployment from commercial fishing vessels. Collaborating fishermen deploy the AULS on the fishing grounds during normal fishing operations to obtain acoustic data needed to identify spawning sites and times for haddock, cod and other groundfishes.

"   Deployments to 1000 m depths began in 2004

Gloucester

Boston Harbor

Provincetown

Jefferies ledge

Stellwagen Bank

Figure 1. Study area located on the Jefferies Ledge fishing ground for cod and haddock.

Daily timing of haddock calls

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7:00

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8:30

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M

11:3

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Cal

ls6-May 9-May 10-Jun

Figure 6. Daily pattern of vocal activity recorded on Jefferies Ledge on three separate dates.

AULS

Jefferies Ledge

First in situ recording of haddock in North America

First in situ recording of daily vocal activity (i.e. spawning) patterns

Case study: Haddock

0

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CPU

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Time categories across 24h time period Night hours

Haddock spawn primarily at night

Potential of passive acoustics to monitor the invasion of the Hudson

River by the freshwater drum, Aplodinotus grunniens

Francis Juanes (Univ. Victoria) and Rodney Rountree (Univ. Mass)

How are sounds detected? •  Fishes have 2

inner ears but no middle or external ear

•  Inner ear structure similar to other vertebrates

•  Sensory hair cells responsible for converting sound to electrical signals

Despite the concerns raised by the increased presence of anthropogenic sound in the aquatic environment, very little is known about the effects of exposure to such sounds on marine mammals, and far less is known about the effects on fishes One must always be cautious when extrapolating outside the bounds of empirical data, and because data available for the effects of sound on fishes are so few, extra caution is advised when attempting to extrapolate between fish species, even for identical stimuli. Moreover, one must also be cautious with any attempt to extrapolate results between stimuli because the characteristics of the sources (e.g. air guns, sonars, ships, pile driving) differ significantly from one another.

Offshore wind turbine sound

Thomsen et al. 06

Potential effects on hearing? "  High intensity (relatively transient)

sounds can fatigue, damage or kill sensory hair cells

"  Unlike mammals, fish can replace or repair damaged sensory cells

McCauley et al. 03

Behavioural effects on hearing? Pile driving sound

Thomsen et al. 06

Behavioural effects of pile driving noise

"  Direct mortality in surfperches •  Extent of damage and mortality greater closer to the

source "  Startle and alarm responses when exposed to

an air gun (rockfish) •  Tighter schools •  Schools collapsed to the bottom •  Became motionless on bottom

Potential effects on hearing? "  High intensity (relatively transient)

sounds can fatigue, damage or kill sensory hair cells

"  Unlike mammals, fish can replace or repair damaged sensory cells

"  Lower intensity (but longer term) may have more behavioural and physiological effects and perhaps highest impact "  Low frequency noise from shipping "  Higher frequency underwater

measurement sounds

Slabbekoorn et al. 2010

Behavioural effects of noise?

Slabbekoorn et al. 2010

Behavioural effects of noise?

Wahlberg and Westerberg 05

Diving herring school after being approached by a trawl

Behavioural effects of noise?

Cod catch before, during and after a seismic survey using an air gun

Offshore wind turbine sound

Thomsen et al. 06

Effects of wind farm noise "  Salmon and cod likely detect wind farm

sounds at maximum distance of 25km •  Distance depends on wind speed, type and number

of windmills, water depth and bottom substrate "  Little evidence that windmills can cause

temporal or permanent hearing damage •  But may cause avoidance, physiological stress •  And will have an effect on maximum acoustic

signaling distance (masking) "  Wind farm construction may have much higher

impacts than operations •  Pile driving may be heard up to 80 km

Slabbekoorn et al. 2010

Volume of world shipping traffic

Halpern et al. NCEAS

Effects of shipping noise? “Shipping is

probably the most extensive source of noise in the oceans, especially along the major shipping channels (e.g., from Alaska to California for supertankers carrying oil).”

-Popper, 2003

Plainfin midshipman

Ecological implications? "  Noise dependent fish distributions

•  Are there differences in how fish are distributed in quiet and noisy environments, and how might these distributions vary depending on sound source, species, fish age, and other physical and biological factors?

•  How does noise affect orientation (larvae/juveniles)?

"  Reproductive consequences of noisy conditions •  Is there a negative influence of anthropogenic noise

on reproductive success, by causing physiological stress, by restricting mate finding, or by keeping fish from preferred spawning sites?

Ecological implications? "  Masking effects on communicative sounds

•  Does the presence of masking sounds of different types and intensities impact the ability of fish to communicate acoustically or use the acoustic ‘soundscape’ to learn about the environment?

"  Masking effects on predator-prey relationships   Does the presence of masking noise affect the ability

of fish to find prey (get food) or detect the presence of predators (become food)?

Thanks!