The role of freshwater bioacoustics in ecological research

Jack A Greenhalgh,Gareth Jones,Camille Desjonquères,Martin J Genner

doi:10.1002/wat2.1416

Jack A Greenhalgh, Gareth Jones + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1416

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Abstract

AbstractConventional methodologies used to estimate biodiversity in freshwater ecosystems can be nonselective and invasive, sometimes leading to capture and potential injury of vulnerable species. Therefore, interest in noninvasive surveying techniques is growing among freshwater ecologists. Passive acoustic monitoring, the noninvasive recording of environmental sounds, has been shown to effectively survey biota in terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, knowledge of the sounds produced by freshwater species is relatively scarce. Furthermore, little is known about the representation of different freshwater taxonomic groups and habitat types within the literature. Here we present results of a systematic review of research literature on freshwater bioacoustics and identify promising areas of future research. The review showed that fish are the focal taxonomic group in 44% of published studies and were studied primarily in laboratory aquaria and lotic habitats. By contrast, lentic habitats and other taxonomic groups have received relatively little research interest. It is particularly striking that arthropods are only represented by 26% of studies, despite their significant contributions to freshwater soundscapes. This indicates a mismatch between the representation of taxonomic groups within the freshwater bioacoustic literature and their relative acoustic contribution to natural freshwater soundscapes. In addition, the review indicates an ongoing shift from behavioral studies, often with focus on a single taxonomic group, towards field‐based studies using ecoacoustic approaches. On the basis of this review we suggest that future freshwater bioacoustics research should focus on passive acoustic monitoring and arthropod sound, which would likely yield novel insights into freshwater ecosystem function and condition.This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems Water and Life > Conservation, Management, and Awareness Water and Life > Methods

Highlights

Biodiversity and ecosystem functions are closely linked, and monitoring biological diversity and abundance is essential for developing an understanding of ecosystem condition and processes (McGrady-Steed, Harris, & Morin, 1997)
The number of individuals sampled, and the number, size and distribution of sampling areas can have a strong influence on values of estimated biodiversity (Gotelli & Colwell, 2011)
Biodiversity estimates are often extrapolated over large temporal and spatial scales to compensate for the logistical difficulties associated with sampling large areas for long periods of time (Gasc, Pavoine, Lellouch, Grandcolas, & Sueur, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Biodiversity and ecosystem functions are closely linked, and monitoring biological diversity and abundance is essential for developing an understanding of ecosystem condition and processes (McGrady-Steed, Harris, & Morin, 1997). Many methods used to estimate biodiversity such as quadrats (Stevens, Dise, Mountford, & Gowing, 2004) and camera traps (Silveira, Jacomo, & Diniz-Filho, 2003) can underestimate the diversity of fauna present in a habitat. In freshwater systems conventional methodologies used to estimate biodiversity, such as kick sampling, fyke netting and trapping, are nonselective and invasive, sometimes leading to the capture of vulnerable species. These methods can necessitate substantial manual labor as field sites must be visited frequently to deploy and check equipment, and there can be requirements for laboratory processing and species identification. Soundscapes (i.e., representations of all the acoustic signals in an environment; Table 1) of freshwater ecosystems remain largely unexplored (Linke et al, 2018)

Methods

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Conclusion