The effect of exposure to seismic prospecting on coral reef fishes

Abstract

Departamento de Zootecnia (Caixa Postal 19073, 81531-990, Curitiba, PR, Brazil) *wboeger@ufpr.br Effective management of marine environments requires an understanding of how natural communities are affected by anthropogenic perturbations. A potentially severe stress to these environments is the seismic prospecting of hydrocarbon deposits (Gausland, 2003). This method is based on the production of high intensity sound pulses, which are reflected by the ocean floor and recorded using very sensitive hydrophones. After being processed, these signals are used by researchers to generate a wealth of information about the topography of the ocean floor and its underlying geological formations. Given that the use of air guns is currently the most important method of seismic prospecting (Wardle