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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Remote Sens.
Sec. Acoustic Remote Sensing
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsen.2024.1377206
This article is part of the Research Topic Detection and Characterization of Unidentified Underwater Biological Sounds, Their Spatiotemporal Patterns and Possible Sources. View all 5 articles

Cross-referencing unidentified fish sound data sets to unravel sound sources: a case study from the Temperate Northern Atlantic

Provisionally accepted
Manuel Vieira Manuel Vieira 1,2*Noelia Rios Noelia Rios 3Sebastian Muñoz-Duque Sebastian Muñoz-Duque 2,4Jodanne Pereira Jodanne Pereira 2,4Rita Carriço Rita Carriço 5Marc Fernandez Marc Fernandez 6João G. Monteiro João G. Monteiro 7Miguel Pessanha Pais Miguel Pessanha Pais 1Bernardo S. Quintella Bernardo S. Quintella 1,2Goncalo Silva Goncalo Silva 3Rodrigo Silva Rodrigo Silva 7Paulo J. Fonseca Paulo J. Fonseca 2,8M. Clara P. Amorim M. Clara P. Amorim 1,2
  • 1 Center for Marine and Environmental Sciences (MARE), Lisbon, Portugal
  • 2 Department of Animal Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Campo Grande, Lisboa, Portugal
  • 3 MARE-ISPA, Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal
  • 4 Ghent University, Ghent, East Flanders, Belgium
  • 5 Direção Regional de Políticas Marítimas da Secretaria Regional do Mar e Pescas, Governo dos Açores, Azores, Portugal
  • 6 MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, Agência Regional para o Desenvolvimento da Investigação Tecnologia e Inovação (ARDITI/Uma),, Madeira, Portugal
  • 7 MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, Agência Regional para o Desenvolvimento da Investigação Tecnologia e Inovação (ARDITI/Uma), Madeira, Portugal
  • 8 Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    There is growing evidence that studying aquatic acoustic communities can provide ecologically relevant information. Understanding these communities may offer unique insights into species behaviour and ecology, while consolidating passive acoustic monitoring as a tool for mapping the presence of target species or estimating changes in aquatic biodiversity. Fish can be significant soundscape contributors, but most soniferous fish species are yet to be identified. Here, we crossed information of three key fish acoustic communities in the Lusitanian Province of the Temperate Northern Atlantic (the Madeira archipelago, the Azores archipelago and Arrábida in mainland Portugal) to unveil potential sources of unidentified fish sounds. We found that the three communities shared various sound types and we were able to narrow down the list of possible fish sound sources. Several sound types were suggested to be produced by species of the Pomacentridae, Scorpaenidae and Serranidae families. We also observed that the sound type /kwa/, associated with Scorpaena spp., exhibited more variations in the geographic area where more species of this genus are known to be present. This study showcases that, as databases of unidentified fish sounds continue to grow, future comparisons of multiple acoustic communities may provide insights into unknown fish sound sources and sound types.

    Keywords: Soundscape ecology, unidentified fish sounds, Portugal, Passive acoustic monitoring, bioacoustics

    Received: 26 Jan 2024; Accepted: 16 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Vieira, Rios, Muñoz-Duque, Pereira, Carriço, Fernandez, Monteiro, Pessanha Pais, Quintella, Silva, Silva, Fonseca and Amorim. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Manuel Vieira, Center for Marine and Environmental Sciences (MARE), Lisbon, Portugal

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.