Designing marine fishery reserves using passive acoustic telemetry

Marine Fishery Reserves (MFRs) are being adopted, in part, as a strategy to replenish depleted fish stocks and serve as a source for recruits to adjacent fisheries. By necessity, their design must consider the biological parameters of the species under consideration to ensure that the spawning stock is conserved while simultaneously providing propagules for dispersal. We describe how acoustic telemetry can be employed to design effective MFRs by elucidating important life-history parameters of the species under consideration, including home range, and ecological preferences, including habitat utilization. We then designed a reserve based on these parameters using data from two acoustic telemetry studies that examined two closely-linked subpopulations of queen conch (Strombus gigas) at Conch Reef in the Florida Keys. The union of the home ranges of the individual conch (aggregation home range: AgHR) within each subpopulation was used to construct a shape delineating the area within which a conch would be located with a high probability. Together with habitat utilization information acquired during both the spawning and non-spawning seasons, as well as landscape features (i.e., corridors), we designed a 66.5 ha MFR to conserve the conch population. Consideration was also given for further expansion of the population into suitable habitats.

Acoustic signatures of the seafloor: Tools for predicting grouper habitat

Groupers are important components of commercial and recreational fisheries. Current methods of diver-based grouper census surveys could potentially benefit from development of remotely sensed methods of seabed classification. The goal of the present study was to determine if areas of high grouper abundance have characteristic acoustic signatures. A commercial acoustic seabed mapping system, QTC View Series V, was used to survey an area near Carysfort Reef, Florida Keys. Acoustic data were clustered using QTC IMPACT software, resulting in three main acoustic classes covering 94% of the area surveyed. Diver-based data indicate that one of the acoustic classes corresponded to hard substrate and the other two represented sediment. A new measurement of seabed heterogeneity, designated acoustic variability, was also computed from the acoustic survey data in order to more fully characterize the acoustic response (i.e., the signature) of the seafloor. When compared with diver-based grouper census data, both acoustic classification and acoustic variability were significantly different at sites with and without groupers. Sites with groupers were characterized by hard bottom substrate and high acoustic variability. Thus, the acoustic signature of a site, as measured by acoustic classification or acoustic variability, is a potentially useful tool for stratifying diver sampling effort for grouper census.

Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Remote Regions, Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Coconut Island, Hawaii, February 7-9, 2007: workshop proceedings

The Alliance for Coastal Technologies (ACT) convened a workshop, sponsored by the Hawaii-Pacific and Alaska Regional Partners, entitled Underwater Passive Acoustic Monitoring for Remote Regions at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology from February 7-9, 2007. The workshop was designed to summarize existing passive acoustic technologies and their uses, as well as to make strategic recommendations for future development and collaborative programs that use passive acoustic tools for scientific investigation and resource management. The workshop was attended by 29 people representing three sectors: research scientists, resource managers, and technology developers. The majority of passive acoustic tools are being developed by individual scientists for specific applications and few tools are available commercially. Most scientists are developing hydrophone-based systems to listen for species-specific information on fish or cetaceans; a few scientists are listening for biological indicators of ecosystem health. Resource managers are interested in passive acoustics primarily for vessel detection in remote protected areas and secondarily to obtain biological and ecological information. The military has been monitoring with hydrophones for decades;however, data and signal processing software has not been readily available to the scientific community, and future collaboration is greatly needed. The challenges that impede future development of passive acoustics are surmountable with greater collaboration. Hardware exists and is accessible; the limits are in the software and in the interpretation of sounds and their correlation with ecological events. Collaboration with the military and the private companies it contracts will assist scientists and managers with obtaining and developing software and data analysis tools. Collaborative proposals among scientists to receive larger pools of money for exploratory acoustic science will further develop the ability to correlate noise with ecological activities. The existing technologies and data analysis are adequate to meet resource managers' needs for vessel detection. However, collaboration is needed among resource managers to prepare large-scale programs that include centralized processing in an effort to address the lack of local capacity within management agencies to analyze and interpret the data. Workshop participants suggested that ACT might facilitate such collaborations through its website and by providing recommendations to key agencies and programs, such as DOD, NOAA, and I00s. There is a need to standardize data formats and archive acoustic environmental data at the national and international levels. Specifically, there is a need for local training and primers for public education, as well as by pilot demonstration projects, perhaps in conjunction with National Marine Sanctuaries. Passive acoustic technologies should be implemented immediately to address vessel monitoring needs. Ecological and health monitoring applications should be developed as vessel monitoring programs provide additional data and opportunities for more exploratory research. Passive acoustic monitoring should also be correlated with water quality monitoring to ease integration into long-term monitoring programs, such as the ocean observing systems. [PDF contains 52 pages]

Acoustic Calculation for Supersonic Turbulent Boundary Layer Flow

An approach which combines direct numerical simulation (DNS) with the Lighthill acoustic analogy theory is used to study the potential noise sources during the transition process of a Mach 2.25 flat plate boundary layer. The quadrupole sound sources due to the flow fluctuations and the dipole sound sources due to the fluctuating surface stress are obtained. Numerical results suggest that formation of the high shear layers leads to a dramatic amplification of amplitude of the fluctuating quadrupole sound sources. Compared with the quadrupole sound source, the energy of dipole sound source is concentrated in the relatively low frequency range.

A Wide Band Strong Acoustic Absorption in a Locally Network Anechoic Coating

Composite materials with interpenetrating network structures usually exhibit unexpected merit due to the cooperative interaction. Locally resonant phononic crystals (LRPC) exhibit excellent sound attenuation performance based on a periodical arrangement of sound wave scatters. Inspired by the interpenetrating network structure and the LRPC concept, we develop a locally network anechoic coating (LNAC) that can achieve a wide band of underwater strong acoustic absorption. The experimental results show that the LNAC possesses an excellent underwater acoustic absorbing capacity in a wide frequency range. Moreover, in order to investigate the impact of the interpenetrating network structure, we fabricate a faultage structure sample and the network is disconnected by hard polyurethane (PU). The experimental comparison between the LNAC and the faultage structure sample shows that the interpenetrating network structure of the LNAC plays an important role in achieving a wide band strong acoustic absorption.

Locally resonant phononic woodpile: A wide band anomalous underwater acoustic absorbing material

To meet the demand of modern acoustic absorbing material for which acoustic absorbing frequency region can be readily tailored, we introduced woodpile structure into locally resonant phononic crystal (LRPC) and fabricated an underwater acoustic absorbing material, which is called locally resonant phononic woodpile (LRPW). Experimental results show that LRPW has a strong capability of absorbing sound in a wide frequency range. Further theoretical research revealed that LRPC units and woodpile structure in LRPW play an important role in realization of wide band underwater strong acoustic absorption.