Promises and challenges of fisheries acoustics: When biology collides with physics

Abstract

Active acoustic technologies have been used in fisheries resource management and ecological research since the 1920s. Since the first applications, both technological and analytic advances have been developed, vetted, and then rapidly adopted once a science or data need has been identified. In parallel, increased availability of off-the-shelf data acquisition and processing tools has broadened the traditional fisheries acoustics community from engineers, mathematicians, and physicists to include biologists and statisticians. The resulting wider availability of acoustic technologies, integration of instrument packages, and a more diverse user community has increased the number of acoustic-based studies. But like any other sampling tool, acoustics in isolation does not provide a definitive solution to mapping, counting, and/or identifying distributions and dynamics of interacting aquatic populations. Challenges of identifying spatial and temporal population distribution boundaries in response to evolving environmental conditions are amplified as management mandates and research scopes expand. Despite the challenges, integration of technological and data processing advances applied to study design and analytic workflow continues to increase the range of acoustic applications that address both research and management goals.