保护性行为:研究记录了石斑鱼在美国的交配叫声.S. 加勒比
石斑鱼一群红后石斑鱼(石斑鱼属, 哪些会发出与求偶有关的特定物种的声音, 领土或繁殖.
每年几个月, groupers (Epinephelidae) gather in the hundreds and even thousands to mate under the full moon. 这种集中的性质和交配持续时间短, 然而, 使这些物种容易受到偶然的捕捞和偷猎.
尽管通过海洋管理区采取了保护措施, these management zone boundaries may fail to fully encompass fish migration paths and chronological variability in fish spawning aggregations, 尤其是濒危物种.
Recent evidence suggests that some reproductive times are extending beyond months and locations for which the marine managed areas were established. 然而,, impacts of protecting fish spawning aggregations with seasonal marine managed areas or market bans remain largely unknown.
野生动物的“呼唤”激发了研究人员的灵感 KU体育官网APP’s 海洋研究所港湾分所 to follow and record grouper mating sounds at three marine managed areas off the west coast of Puerto Rico in the United States 加勒比.
为了研究, 研究ers used passive acoustics to locate spawning aggregations of two commercially important species – the Nassau (Epinephelus striatus) and red hind (Epinephelus guttatus) groupers – to determine temporal patterns in their reproductive behaviors as well as habitat use. These marine managed areas have focused on reproductive seasons through seasonal closures.
“Groupers produce very distinct sounds associated with courtship, 领土或繁殖. 有些声音在频率和脉搏率上是物种特有的, which allows their signal to be clearly detected from acoustic recordings,” Laurent智天使, Ph.D.他是能力海港分校的资深作者和研究教授. “这些石斑鱼的叫声在持续时间上是独特的, 峰值频率, 以及音调特征, and are easily distinguished from each other audibly and visually in spectrograms.”
An autonomous mobile wave glider was deployed to survey two marine managed areas on the western shelf of Puerto Rico: Abrir la Sierra and Bajo de Sico. Using hydrophone recorders and a machine-learning fish sound detector and classifier tool called Fish Acoustic Detection Algorithm 研究 (FADAR), 研究人员评估了石斑鱼叫声的空间分布, compared the timing of grouper calls between the fixed recorders and the wave glider and determined the spatiotemporal distribution of the two species as they aggregated to spawn.
The multi-day wave glider mission was designed to repeatedly survey over known sites while also sampling nearby areas that met typical fish spawning aggregations habitat characteristics, 也就是架子边缘. The courtship-associated sound detection results were then used to determine hourly and daily call rates for each species. The underwater passive acoustic recorders recorded four minutes of ocean sounds every hour.
该研究结果发表在该杂志上 渔业研究 , reveal that known fish spawning aggregations sites are critical habitat for both Nassau and red hind species. 此外, 势的存在, previously unknown fish spawning aggregations for multiple grouper species also highlights the importance of spatial and temporal expansion of existing regulations.
研究ers found a notable spread of courtship-associated sounds of approximately 500 meters of both spawning aggregation sites, 哪个随月相变化. 多重存在, smaller aggregations of red hind within fish spawning aggregations suggest increased spread such as to the southern shelf of the U.S. 属维尔京群岛.
“The use of fish spawning aggregation sites by multiple species has important implications for management decisions,切姆鲁宾说. “Estimating their relative importance across habitat is needed to understand the population trends and potential for recovery. Fish could be moving from one site to another across spawning seasons because of environmental changes or other local drivers such human presence.”
The variability in peak courtship-associated sound timing also suggests temporal variability is operating on sub-regional scales. Expanded or permanent closures of known fish spawning aggregations that include threatened species would accommodate for this variance in timing of aggregations, 促进他们的康复.
“Passive acoustic methods do not interfere with grouper reproductive behaviors and may be a cost-effective alternative for managers or 研究ers monitoring various fish spawning aggregations simultaneously,切姆鲁宾说. “前进, we hope to assess correlations between fish density and courtship-associated sound levels to explore the utility of acoustics as a sole mechanism for future studies, further reducing the effort required to identify and monitor these vulnerable fish spawning aggregations.”
Study co-authors are Caroline Woodward, 能力 港分公司; Richard S. Nemeth, Ph值.D., University of the 属维尔京群岛; Richard Appeldoorn, Ph.D., University of Puerto Rico; and Michelle Schärer-Umpierre, Ph.D.
This work was supported by the 海洋研究所港湾分所 Foundation; the National Science Foundation’s 属维尔京群岛 Established Program to Stimulate Competitive 研究; supported in part by a NOAA Saltonstall-Kennedy grant; and supported by a NOAA-MARFIN project.
能力,