Using Soundscapes to Assess Deep-Sea Benthic Ecosystems

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2019.09.006

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

Volume 34, Issue 12, December 2019, Pages 1066-1069

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2019.09.006 Get rights and content

Targets of deep-sea mining commonly coincide with biodiversity hotspots, such as hydrothermal vents. The resilience of these ecosystems relies on larval dispersal, which may be directed by habitat-specific soundscapes. We urge for a global effort to implement soundscape as a conservation tool to assess anthropogenic disruption to deep-sea benthic ecosystems.

Section snippets

Soundscape: Acoustic Signpost in the Deep Sea

The answer may lie in the sound. There is evidence that larvae of coral, mollusc, and reef-associated fish in shallow waters use sound for settlement 3, 4. While light is quickly diminished in seawater, sound can travel a long distance for larvae to sense the acoustic heterogeneity [4]. By detecting soundscapes, composed of various sources of geophony and biophony, specific to their preferred habitats, larvae exhibit positive phonotaxis and actively direct their movement to settle in suitable

Anthropogenic Disruption of Soundscapes and Resilience

Anthrophony disrupts the response of coral and fish larvae to reef soundscapes [4] and deep-sea soundscapes are not free from human disturbances. Sound recordings from the Earth’s deepest point – the Challenger Deep in Mariana Trench just shy of 11 km deep, tell us that anthrophony generated at the surface propagates to any depth in our oceans [9]. Mining activity disrupts soundscapes by generating noise from shipping, drilling, and mineral-retrieval machinery, as well as discarding of cuttings

Listening to the Deep: a New Conservation Tool

The monitoring of soundscape has the strength to provide an index of biodiversity of an entire habitat over a long time from a few hydrophones (Table 1), instead of mapping the entire area with underwater robots [11]. This corroborates data from other newly arising techniques, such as environmental DNA and RNA [11], serving as independent and complementary datasets in assessing mining impact and ecosystem resilience. Moreover, knowing what these habitats sound like will help us manage

Glossary

Anthrophony: sounds generated by human activities. Common underwater sources of anthrophony including maritime traffic, submersibles, sonar, acoustic communications, and resource exploitation activities.
Biophony: sounds generated by nonhuman organisms. Organisms may produce sounds intentionally or unintentionally, depending on behavioural contexts, species, and even populations.
Exclusive Economic Zones: waters extending 200 nautical miles from the shoreline, within which nations have sovereign rights

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There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (21)

Effectiveness of ocean gliders in monitoring ocean acoustics and anthropogenic noise from ships: A systematic review
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Underwater noise emissions from marine vehicles contribute to increasing ocean ambient noise levels, which is a threat to marine ecosystems. Passive acoustic monitoring, normally performed using moored-anchored systems, is commonly used to assess ocean soundscapes, vessel noise, and the presence of marine species. A systematic literature review was conducted to explore the use of autonomous underwater gliders (AUG) as an alternative to traditional moored systems for monitoring and assessing ship noise levels. We conducted thorough searches in Scopus and Web of Science, following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We considered 13 articles on ocean glider applications for passive surveys and 8 articles on challenges in assessing underwater ship noise levels. Our findings were supplemented with international standards and guidelines from classification societies. Gliders are effective platforms for ship noise signature assessment due to their low noise signature and extended autonomy. In addition, AUGs can perform a 3D scan of the water column salinity, temperature, and density, which are needed to estimate sound propagation loss accurately. Further research is required to assess the potential of AUGs for accurately estimating ship noise levels by integrating oceanographic and acoustic data.
Assessment of scientific gaps related to the effective environmental management of deep-seabed mining
2022, Marine Policy
Citation Excerpt :
Lin, Chen, Watanabe, Kawagucci, Yamamoto and Akamatsu [269] have hypothesized that sound may act as a settlement cue in specific habitats in the deep sea as it does on shallow-water coral reefs. If so, noise from shipping, drilling, and mineral-retrieval machinery, as well as discarding of cuttings, during the mining process could mask the natural deep-sea soundscape and affect marine mammals and other species in and around the mining areas [12,268–271]. Cumulative impacts: There have been conceptual attempts to qualitatively model cumulative impacts [272].
A comprehensive understanding of the deep-sea environment and mining’s likely impacts is necessary to assess whether and under what conditions deep-seabed mining operations comply with the International Seabed Authority’s obligations to prevent ‘serious harm’ and ensure the ‘effective protection of the marine environment from harmful effects’ in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. A synthesis of the peer-reviewed literature and consultations with deep-seabed mining stakeholders revealed that, despite an increase in deep-sea research, there are few categories of publicly available scientific knowledge comprehensive enough to enable evidence-based decision-making regarding environmental management, including whether to proceed with mining in regions where exploration contracts have been granted by the International Seabed Authority. Further information on deep-sea environmental baselines and mining impacts is critical for this emerging industry. Closing the scientific gaps related to deep-seabed mining is a monumental task that is essential to fulfilling the overarching obligation to prevent serious harm and ensure effective protection, and will require clear direction, substantial resources, and robust coordination and collaboration. Based on the information gathered, we propose a potential high-level road map of activities that could stimulate a much-needed discussion on the steps that should be taken to close key scientific gaps before any exploitation is considered. These steps include the definition of environmental goals and objectives, the establishment of an international research agenda to generate new deep-sea environmental, biological, and ecological information, and the synthesis of data that already exist.
Unlocking the soundscape of coral reefs with artificial intelligence
2024, bioRxiv
Acoustic twilight: A year-long seafloor monitoring unveils phenological patterns in the abyssal soundscape
2024, Limnology And Oceanography Letters
Multidimensional comparison of underwater soundscapes using the soundscape codea)
2023, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Diverse ecologies for sound and music studies
2023, Sounds, Ecologies, Musics

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⁴: These authors made an equal contribution

^@: Twitter: @HarryLin4 (T.-H. Lin), @squamiferum (C. Chen), and @hwatanabekayama (H.K. Watanabe).

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Trends in Ecology & Evolution

ForumUsing Soundscapes to Assess Deep-Sea Benthic Ecosystems

Section snippets

Soundscape: Acoustic Signpost in the Deep Sea

Anthropogenic Disruption of Soundscapes and Resilience

Listening to the Deep: a New Conservation Tool

Glossary

Mar. Policy

Curr. Biol.

Quantifying dispersal from hydrothermal vent fields in the western Pacific Ocean

Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA

Underwater soundscape monitoring and fish bioacoustics: a review

Fishes

Boat noise prevents soundscape-based habitat selection by coral planulae

Sci. Rep.

Direct video and hydrophone observations of submarine explosive eruptions at NW Rota-1 volcano, Mariana arc

J. Geophys. Res.

Forum
Using Soundscapes to Assess Deep-Sea Benthic Ecosystems