Abstract
The coral reefs surrounding Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef have a diverse soundscape that contains an array of bioacoustic phenomena, notably choruses produced by fishes. Six fish choruses identified around Lizard Island exhibited distinctive spatial and temporal patterns from 2014 to 2016. Several choruses displayed site fidelity, indicating that particular sites may represent important habitat for fish species, such as fish spawning aggregations sites. The choruses displayed a broad range of periodicities, from diel to annual, which provides new insights into the ecology of vocalising reef fish species and the surrounding ecosystem. All choruses were affected by one or more environmental variables including temperature and moonlight, the latter of which had a significant influence on the timing and received sound levels. These findings highlight the utility of passive acoustic tools for long-term monitoring and management of coral reefs, which is highly relevant in light of recent global disturbance events, particularly coral bleaching.
Highlights
Environmental rhythms strongly influence the presence, diversity and dispersal of organisms in ecosystems, where cyclical patterns are a fundamental part of natural systems[1]
Chorus I was observed at three sites, North Point (NP), Eagle Island (EI) and South Island (SI), where the NP site consistently displayed the highest chorus levels (Fig. 2)
This chorus was not detected at the remaining field sites, Big Vicky’s (BV), Lagoon (LG) and Shipping Channel (SC) during any of the recording periods
Summary
Environmental rhythms strongly influence the presence, diversity and dispersal of organisms in ecosystems, where cyclical patterns are a fundamental part of natural systems[1]. The commencement of spawning in fish has been shown to be influenced by a combination of environmental cues, notably water temperature[6], tidal regimes[7,8] and lunar phase[9,10] These may act synergistically or antagonistically to stimulate changes in behaviour[11]. Field sites in the north and south of the island displayed consistently higher chorus diversity and levels than other sites, suggesting that particular locations are important aggregation areas for soniferous fish[32]. Three of these choruses were previously undocumented and could hold valuable information on the source presence, abundance and dispersal patterns
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