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Taking the pulse of coral reefs
Date:9/21/2010

Healthy reefs with more corals and fish generate predictably greater levels of noise, according to researchers working in Panama. This has important implications for understanding the behaviour of young fish, and provides an exciting new approach for monitoring environmental health by listening to reefs.

Contrary to Jacques Cousteau's 'Silent World', coral reefs are surprisingly noisy places, with fish and invertebrates producing clicks and grunts which combine to produce cacophonies of noise. Each reef is subtly different depending on the size and composition of the resident community.

By analysing recordings of coral reefs from the Las Perlas Archipelago in Pacific Panama (Central America), marine biologists have found that some reefs are noisier than others, and these differences in noise provide useful information about the state of the reef. Exeter University PhD student Emma Kennedy and her supervisor Dr Steve Simpson, working with an acoustician Dr Marc Holderied, also from the University of Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, found that healthier reefs were louder, with a clear association between overall noise level generated and the amount of living coral.

A more detailed investigation of the sound produced by some of the reefs showed that lower frequency sounds provided more information on the numbers of fish living on the reef, while the intensity of higher frequency reef sounds gave an indication of coral diversity. This is the first time that a link has been made between noise generated by individual reefs and the specific habitats and communities making up that reef.

Previous work by Dr Steve Simpson has shown that larval fish and corals returning to reefs after spending their first few weeks out in the plankton, search for habitat by listening out for, and moving towards, reef noise. Sound travels well underwater, meaning that noise produced by a reef can propagate several kilometres out to sea.


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Contact: Caroline Clancy
caroline.clancy@bristol.ac.uk
44-117-928-7777
University of Bristol
Source:Eurekalert  

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