The ocean has music for those who ping AND listen

Abstract

Sound is a key sense for animals in the ocean, including humans. The integration of passive and active acoustics in behavioral and ecosystem studies has revealed much about how ocean systems work. Here, I will discuss how the integration of echosounders with various passive acoustic approaches has contributed to our understanding to the biology and ecology of marine mammals. For example, explaining the habitat selection of beaked whales, the foraging ecology, behavior, and communication of spinner dolphins, and the ability of dolphin sonar to discriminate fish species. Careful integration of passive and active acoustics has also contributed to sonar signal design and processing approaches. A recent study of Risso’s dolphins using passive acoustic recording tags on the dolphins themselves and echosounders deployed from a ship and an underwater vehicle provided new insights into how these animals make foraging decisions, what information is available to them and when, and how changes in their prey over space and time affect their foraging behavior. The combination of passive and active acoustics is providing insight into the ecology and dynamics of predator and prey at the scale of the individual and the population.Sound is a key sense for animals in the ocean, including humans. The integration of passive and active acoustics in behavioral and ecosystem studies has revealed much about how ocean systems work. Here, I will discuss how the integration of echosounders with various passive acoustic approaches has contributed to our understanding to the biology and ecology of marine mammals. For example, explaining the habitat selection of beaked whales, the foraging ecology, behavior, and communication of spinner dolphins, and the ability of dolphin sonar to discriminate fish species. Careful integration of passive and active acoustics has also contributed to sonar signal design and processing approaches. A recent study of Risso’s dolphins using passive acoustic recording tags on the dolphins themselves and echosounders deployed from a ship and an underwater vehicle provided new insights into how these animals make foraging decisions, what information is available to them and when, and how changes in their prey over spac...