Research Programs

The study of fish bioacoustics is expanding scientific knowledge about how fish communicate their reproductive behavior and evolution. It also applies directly to aspects of fisheries management and conservation. Furthermore, these studies are revealing the importance of the acoustic environment and, once more, raise old questions regarding potential adverse impacts of noise pollution to fishes and other aquatic animals.

The scientific goal of my bioacoustic research is to determine which fishes produce species-specific sound patterns exclusively with explicit acts of courtship and mating. This provides scientific insight into evolutionary and ecological processes and also provides data necessary to develop the passive acoustic detection technology for monitoring fish reproduction.

One goal of the research in my laboratory is to evaluate how specific fish vocalizations and methods for passive acoustic localization can be applied to field studies of fish reproduction. We are evaluating how species-specific sounds differ statistically and acoustically. This provides the data necessary to identify which species have the potential to be monitored using passive acoustic detection. The ultimate objective is to develop instrumentation, deployment strategies and analytical procedures for locating spawning populations, and quantifying the spatial and temporal patterns of fish reproduction. It is important to determine whether specific spawning sites are used consistently throughout a season and between seasons, or if sites change with fluctuating environmental conditions. For example, certain groupers and snappers aggregate annually at specific sites to spawn. Determining exactly where and when these fish spawn is a critical component of assessing essential fish habitat and practicing effective marine management. The spatial and temporal patterns of fish reproduction at known sites can be recorded using hydrophones, recorders and, recently, computers. When these systems are coupled with standard physical oceanographic instrumentation, it will provide quantitative data on the correlation of spawning patterns with temperature, light levels, salinity, current flow, etc. Day-length, temperature and salinity are common proximate environmental cues for fishes to synchronize breeding. However, it is probably the spatial and temporal interplay of the proximate stimuli with variables affecting larval survival and recruitment that ultimately achieve regulation of reproductive cycles.

This information is essential to understanding how fish reproduction may be correlated with oceanographic phenomena that influence larval distribution patterns. Ultimately, replicates of this combined bioacoustic-physical oceanographic station could be deployed at multiple sites simultaneously to compare the timing of spawning throughout a region. To test our concepts and develop the methods we need to evaluate field recordings of fish courtship and spawning sounds. Rebreathers provide the technology to do this most efficiently.

Publications on fish bioacoustics

2002 Lobel, P. S. Diversity of fish spawning sounds and the application of passive acoustic monitoring. Bioacoustics 12:286-289

2002 Ripley, J. L., P. S. Lobel & H. Y. Yan Correlation of sound production with hearing sensitivity in the Lake Malawi cichlid, Tramitochromis intermedius. Bioacoustics 12:238-240

Return to Top | Research Programs