From the Reef to the Ocean: Revealing the Acoustic Range of the Biophony of a Coral Reef (Moorea Island, French Polynesia)

Laboratory of Functional and Evolutionary Morphology, Freshwater and Oceanic Science Unit of Research, University of Liège, allée du 6 août B6c, 4000 Liège, Belgium

Chorus Institute, rue Galice 5, 38100 Grenoble, France

Centre de Recherches Insulaires et Observatoire de l’Environnement, USR 3278, EPHE-UPVD-CNRS-PSL University, BP 1013, 98729 Moorea, French Polynesia

⁴

Laboratoire d’Excellence “CORAIL”, 58 Avenue Paul Alduy, 66860 Perpignan, France

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editor: Giuseppa Buscaino

J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(4), 420; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9040420

Received: 19 March 2021 / Revised: 8 April 2021 / Accepted: 9 April 2021 / Published: 13 April 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Passive Acoustics to Study Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems)

View Full-Text Download PDF

Browse Figures

Citation Export

Abstract

The ability of different marine species to use acoustic cues to locate reefs is known, but the maximal propagation distance of coral reef sounds is still unknown. Using drifting antennas (made of a floater and an autonomous recorder connected to a hydrophone), six transects were realized from the reef crest up to 10 km in the open ocean on Moorea island (French Polynesia). Benthic invertebrates were the major contributors to the ambient noise, producing acoustic mass phenomena (3.5–5.5 kHz) that could propagate at more than 90 km under flat/calm sea conditions and more than 50 km with an average wind regime of 6 knots. However, fish choruses, with frequencies mainly between 200 and 500 Hz would not propagate at distances greater than 2 km. These distances decreased with increasing wind or ship traffic. Using audiograms of different taxa, we estimated that fish post-larvae and invertebrates likely hear the reef at distances up to 0.5 km and some cetaceans would be able to detect reefs up to more than 17 km. These results are an empirically based validation from an example reef and are essential to understanding the effect of soundscape degradation on different zoological groups. View Full-Text

Keywords: soundscape; bioacoustics; passive acoustics; propagation; detection distance; drifting system

▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Supplementary Material

Supplementary File 1:
PDF-Document (PDF, 186 KiB)

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Raick, X.; Di Iorio, L.; Gervaise, C.; Lossent, J.; Lecchini, D.; Parmentier, É. From the Reef to the Ocean: Revealing the Acoustic Range of the Biophony of a Coral Reef (Moorea Island, French Polynesia). J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9, 420. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9040420

AMA Style

Raick X, Di Iorio L, Gervaise C, Lossent J, Lecchini D, Parmentier É. From the Reef to the Ocean: Revealing the Acoustic Range of the Biophony of a Coral Reef (Moorea Island, French Polynesia). Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. 2021; 9(4):420. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9040420

Chicago/Turabian Style

Raick, Xavier, Lucia Di Iorio, Cédric Gervaise, Julie Lossent, David Lecchini, and Éric Parmentier. 2021. "From the Reef to the Ocean: Revealing the Acoustic Range of the Biophony of a Coral Reef (Moorea Island, French Polynesia)" Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 9, no. 4: 420. https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9040420

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

From the Reef to the Ocean: Revealing the Acoustic Range of the Biophony of a Coral Reef (Moorea Island, French Polynesia)

Abstract

Supplementary Material

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI