Gulf of Mexico soundscapes as indicators of ecological stressors
Abstract
Soundscapes in the Northern Gulf of Mexico are complex and represent a combination of anthropogenic noise (oil exploration and production, shipping, rig construction, etc.), bio-soundscapes (sound of marine mammals and fish), and geo-soundscapes (weather events, submarine landslides, distant earthquakes, natural gas seeps). We will discuss how Passive Acoustic Monitoring in the deep Gulf has been utilized during the past decade to study the soundscape variability on daily, monthly, and yearly timescales and what environmental information can be extracted from this variability. Isolation of bio-soundscapes, identification of their sources, and abundance estimates based on acoustic cues are used to track the recovery of marine mammal species after major ecological disasters, such as the recent 2010 oil spill. Association of acoustic activity of marine species with anthropogenic noise levels and other environmental variables can provide base data that can be used to build ecological models of habitat preferences for different marine species. Understanding how the variability of anthropogenic soundscapes correlates with marine species distributions is critically important for regional conservation and mitigation strategies. Such studies can also assist in forecasting the long-term ecosystem health status and ecosystem response to disturbances of different spatial and temporal extent, including slow variations associated with climate change. [This research was made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, and in part by funding provided by ONR and The Joint Industry Programme.]
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2016
- Bibcode:
- 2016AGUFM.S43A2797S
- Keywords:
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- 3384 Acoustic-gravity waves;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSESDE: 0728 Ice shelves;
- CRYOSPHEREDE: 4560 Surface waves and tides;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICALDE: 7255 Surface waves and free oscillations;
- SEISMOLOGY