SoundScapeEcology

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Coral Reef SoundScape Ecology

The Importance of Sound

Sounds play an important part in our daily lives. We use them for communication, entertainment, and they provide all kinds of information about our environment and what is happening around us. Underwater it is no different. All forms of life make sounds and many of them have a way to detect sounds and use the information they contain to make decisions that affect their very survival.

What is SoundScape Ecology?

Sonic profiles or “soundscapes” were first studied in the late 1960s in the context of urban development. Researchers were originally interested in the impact noise had on the perception of people living in cities. It was not until the late 1970’s that soundscapes were used applied to ecological settings (Pijanowski et al). Over the next two decades, landscape ecology contributed heavily to the development of what would later be known as soundscape ecology. In 2009, at a meeting of the US-International Association of Landscape Ecologists, soundscape ecology was presented as a legitimate academic discipline (Farina).

To understand the impact soundscape ecological research is having on coral reefs today, one must first learn what soundscape ecology is. As its name implies, soundscape ecology is part of the broad field of ecology. It primarily focuses on acoustic relationships between the environment, humans, and other organisms. Researchers collect quantitative data from various ecosystems that are used in the creation of sonic profiles or soundscapes. This allows soundscape ecologists to make comparisons between and within different ecological settings. A multidisciplinary approach is typically taken with geology, biology, and other fields contributing to trying to solve environmental issues affecting them all.

Soundscape ecologists categorize noise into three groups based on the source. Human population also has distinct effects on two of the groups (Pijanowski et al). The first of these is geophony. Sonic energy that comes from non-biological sources such as waves, wind, rivers, storms, tectonic activity, etc., are all examples of geophony. Geophony in an environment often remains constant in occurrence though random in appearance with weather and geological activity being difficult to predict. Human population density does little to change the frequency or magnitude of these noise sources, though our contributions to climate change may be indirectly altering geophony in the case of storms. Biophony is the second category of sound and includes noise produced from non-human biological sources like animals or plants. Mating calls, vocalizations, and other communication fall into this group. Though debated, human voices are sometimes labeled as biophony. The magnitude of these sound sources tends to decrease as human population increases in an area. Deforestation combined with the driving out of animals are the primary reasons for decreased biophony but they can also be masked by rising anthrophony. The final group of anthrophony refers to sound from non-biological human sources such as engines, horns, speakers, and construction. Unsurprisingly, increasing human population leads to increased anthrophony in ecosystems. Environments with extreme anthrophony such as dense urban areas and construction zones can have their biophony and geophony overtaken.

What makes soundscape ecology unique is that it incorporates all three sound sources to build an acoustic profile of an environment of interest (Farina). Specific organisms are observed in the context of how they fit into their ecosystem rather than looking only at the entire ecological setting as a whole. The most important aspect of soundscape ecology is its goal of conservation. Researchers in soundscape ecology go about their work with the mindset of halting long-term anthropogenic changes to the environment. Soundscape ecologists collect objective data which helps them go about accomplishing the subjective goal of preserving the natural world for future generations.

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