Abstract
Many fishes in the family Sciaenidae engage in nightly chorusing events where sound production starts near dusk and lasts for several hours. This paper examines the periodicity and dynamics of chorusing in the Sciaenidae. Underwater acoustic recorders have been deployed in southwest Florida to record sound production with a high temporal resolution (10 s of recording every 10 min) over a large spatial area. Sound production was dominated by three sciaenid species: silver perch (Bairdiella chyrsoura), sand seatrout (Cynoscion arenarius), and spotted seatrout (Cynoscion nebulosus). Sounds produced by black drum (Pogonias cromis), gafftopsail catfish (Bagre marinus), and gulf toadfish (Opsanus beta) were also recorded. Sound levels in sciaenid choruses typically reach levels of approximately 110–120 dB re 1 μPa spectrum level, and are among the loudest sources of sustained ambient noise in temperate and subtropical coastal waters. Little is known about the behavior accompanying sound production, because it occurs in turbid water at night. The use of hydrophone arrays to document fine-scale spatial patterns of sound production will be discussed.
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