New study finds Alaskans familiar with ocean acidification, not aware of risks to fisheries

New research published in Marine Policy from the first Alaska-focused study on public understanding and awareness of ocean acidification risk shows that Alaskans are three times more aware of ocean acidification than Americans in general.  However, Alaskans have difficulty seeing ocean acidification as an immediate risk, and the direct risks to Alaska’s fisheries are still not well understood. The research, “Gauging perceptions of ocean acidification in Alaska,” can be read online.

In Alaska, the impacts of ocean acidification have the potential to be even worse than “other coastal communities because of an accelerated rate of change in ocean chemistry, and statewide reliance on commercial and subsistence fishing. Accurately evaluating ocean acidification risk directly influences the ability to respond to change. The research builds on earlier NOAA-led research showing that communities in southeast and southwest Alaska are more at risk than other areas of the state because of their heavy reliance on fisheries expected to be impacted by ocean acidification.

“We wanted to learn the best way to provide Alaskans with the information they need to properly respond to ocean acidification,” said Lauren Frisch, who led the study and is a research associate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Ocean Acidification Research Center. “The first step was to determine where there are gaps in the understanding of ocean acidification so that we can then work to fill them in.”

                      Crab fishing
A new study shows that Alaskans know about ocean acidification, but are not aware of the risk it poses to Alaskan fisheries. (NOAA)

Some 2000 Alaskans received a questionnaire in September, 2013. Questionnaires asked about each respondent’s role in the state's fishing industry as well as their belief in, understanding of, and concern about ocean acidification. The questionnaire’s response rate was 18 percent, which is high for studies of this nature. Results showed limited understanding of how Alaska will be uniquely impacted by ocean acidification. For example, only 28 percent of Alaskans believe that ocean acidification would have a greater impact on Alaska than other states in the United States.  Alaskans affiliated with the state’s fishing industry are not significantly more concerned about ocean acidification than those unaffiliated, and only 33 percent believe that ocean acidification will decrease revenue for fisheries. Finally, ocean acidification is perceived as a distant risk.  

“It can be difficult to think about ocean acidification as an immediate risk with all of the other challenges that we’re facing,” said Jeremy Mathis, who is the co-lead author on the paper describing the study’s results and an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. “We really have to work harder to get the message out to stakeholders around Alaska that ocean acidification is something that they need to consider sooner rather than later.”

With a better idea of what Alaskans understand about this issue, the next step is to shape public education in a way that facilitates a long-term discussion of ocean acidification drivers and impacts, as well as mitigation and adaptation strategies.

“Moving forward, we need to figure out how to enhance this understanding that acidification is not uniform, and therefore adaptation plans will be more successful if they are local.  Educating communities with local examples about their specific risk could help foster this understanding.  The best thing we can do is provide vulnerable communities the toolset to evaluate risk themselves,” said Frisch.

Source: NOAA

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Blue mussels not yet the bellwether of NE coastal environment

Marcy Cockrell installs cages to protect mussels from predators. In Maine, mussels inside cages faired as well as mussels in the wild. In Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay it was a different story. Credit: Brown University

Ecologists sometimes look to mussel species, a well-studied and foundational genus in estuaries, as model organisms for assessing the condition of coastal habitats, which are crucial for people and well as the broader environment.

But a new study in the journal Ecosphere suggests that the seemingly simple blue mussel, when studied on regional scale from Maine to Connecticut, harbors at least three specific mysteries that must be solved if the mollusks are to serve as the "canaries in the coal mine" of the Northeast coast.

"Mussels could indeed be a good sentinel species for rocky shores, but what our work suggests is that we need to know a lot more about how they behave in these different estuarine settings to use them as an indicator of ecosystem health," said conservation scientist and study senior author Heather Leslie, the Peggy and Henry D. Sharpe Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies.

For the study, Leslie and former students Marcy Cockrell and Joanna Bernhardt monitored and experimented with mussels at 18 sites in the Casco Bay of Maine, the Narragansett Bay of Rhode Island, and the Long Island Sound of Connecticut and New York in 2010 and 2011 (a region spanning about 600 kilometers of coastline). They measured the abundance of mussels both at adult and larval stages, studied the populations of neighboring rocky shore animals and marine algae, and tracked data on ecosystem factors such as water salinity, temperature, nutrients, oxygen, and local human population density. In the experiments, the team protected some mussels with cages to expose the effect that birds, crabs and other predators have on their numbers.

In the end, the research uncovered three intriguing mysteries of mussel life across the region, particularly in Casco Bay:

Generation gaps: Adults were populous but "recruitment" of young mussels from surrounding waters was low in Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. The opposite was true in Casco Bay. There, juvenile recruitment was high but adult populations were low. Few Maine predators: The cage experiments showed a significant role for mussel predators in Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay, but not in Casco Bay. There, unprotected mussels fared about as well as the protected ones. Inner vs. outer: In each estuary, Leslie's team made measurements at sites nestled well within the bay, as well as at sites closer to the open ocean. Prior research suggested that higher levels of food within the bay would promote growth and abundance for the filter-feeding mussels (due to higher levels of nutrients and phytoplankton at the inner estuary sites). The study results were notably mixed across the whole region, however, providing little support for that hypothesis.

Explanations await further research. Genetic studies could determine, for example, whether the young mussels that are so abundant in Casco Bay may be floating up from the more southerly shores. If so, that suggests that mussel population dynamics can only be understood on regional (or multi-estuary) geographic scale.

Meanwhile, understanding why predator activity seems low in Casco Bay might require learning more about the local predator populations there. The findings could shed light on whether the ecosystem is in balance or other factors are at play.

"We did this because we want to understand how these systems work," Leslie said. "Given their accessibility and how well-studied they have been in other locations, rocky shores are logical sentinel ecosystems. They provide an opportunity to investigate how climate change and other more local-scale human activities are affecting New England's coast."

It may take more work to crack open the mussels' mysteries, but the stakes are high enough to make it worthwhile, Leslie said.

Source: Brown University

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Mass animal die-offs may be increasing, new research shows

Large numbers of dead sunfish and largemouth bass in April 2014 following a severe winter on Wintergreen Lake, Kalamazoo County, Michigan. (Photo courtesy of G. Mittelbach)

Mass die-offs of animals may be increasing in frequency and — for birds, fishes, and marine invertebrates — in severity as well, according to a study of 727 mass mortality events since 1940.

Despite the ecological importance of individual mass mortality events, in which a larger than normal number of individuals die within a population, little research has been conducted on patterns across mass mortality events. The new study will help researchers better assess trends in mass mortality events and their causes, according to the authors of the paper in the Jan. 12 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The initial patterns are surprising, in terms of the documented changes to frequencies of occurrences, magnitudes of each event, and the causes of mass mortality,” said Samuel Fey, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale and co-lead author of the paper. “These data also show that we have a lot of room to improve how we document and study these types of rare events.”

Fey, along with fellow researchers at the University of San Diego and University of California-Berkeley, report that the magnitude of the die-offs has increased in birds, fishes, and marine invertebrates, held steady among mammals, and decreased in frogs and amphibians. The authors recognized that more scientific research has been done on mass mortality events in the last few decades but said even accounting for this “discovery bias” does not explain all of the increase in such events. The increase in mass mortality events appears to be associated with a rise in disease emergence, biotoxicity, and multiple interacting stressors, they note.

Overall, disease was the primary culprit, accounting for 26% of the mass die-offs. The impacts of direct human activity, primarily from environmental contamination, caused 19% of such events. Another major cause was biotoxicity triggered by events such as algae blooms, rapid increases of algae in water systems. Processes directly influenced by climate — such as weather extremes, thermal stress, oxygen stress, or starvation — also contributed accounted collectively for about 25% of mass mortality events.

The most severe events were those with multiple causes, the paper shows.

“This study should improve our understanding of the continuum of mortality patterns and processes that exist between background mortality levels and species-level extinctions,” Fey said.

Adam M. Siepielski of the University of San Diego was co-lead author of the paper. Stephanie M. Carlson of the University of California-Berkeley was senior author. Fey began working on this research while a graduate student at Dartmouth College.

Source: Yale University

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Tailor-made for the aquaculture sector

Details are important. The hood is specially adapted for personnel wearing helmets – without compromising vision. Credit: SINTEF Health Research

Fish husbandry workers have played an active part in developing work clothing tailor-made for their wet, windy and messy working conditions.

They're standing in a small circle around a net pen out in the ocean. Their job is to maintain the net pens, de-louse the salmon, and carry out the many other tasks essential to the running of a fish farm facility. The wind is bitter and the rain is lashing in from all directions. Sea water is splashing around their feet. Everything they handle is wet. Cold water creeps relentlessly up to their knees and along to their elbows inside their coveralls, which are only waterproof up until the second wash.

This is a normal working day for a couple of thousand workers in fish farms all along the Norwegian coast. In spite of this no work clothing exists that is specifically adapted to their very special working conditions. Yet.

Industrial designers Tore Christian Bjørsvik Storholmen and Ole Petter Næsgaard at SINTEF Health Research have developed work clothing which they hope will make conditions both safer and more comfortable for husbandry workers out on the fish farms. Their project has been carried out in close collaboration with the workers who will be wearing the clothing.

Better together

"We've spent a lot of time getting to know the business and the needs of the husbandry workers," says Næsgaard. "We've taken part in many tasks, observed what goes on, and have obtained input and feedback in response to our suggestions," he says. "We've met with a thoroughly honest group of people. They don't hold back when they're not satisfied," he says.

They visited three different facilities close to Hitra and Frøya as part of a pilot project. Ideas and sketches made during one visit were taken to the next so that they could encourage reactions and get feedback. It has been an iterative process involving an ongoing series of corrections and improvements.

"This has served as a quality control on our work to develop relevant and attractive solutions," says Storholmen. "We could never have put the first prototype on the market," he says. "But our dialogue with the users has enabled continuous refinement. New details are always being developed and incorporated. "We're now getting close to a product that can be introduced to the market," he says.

Inspired by climbers and skiers

"When we were studying the husbandry workers, we saw that they do a lot of climbing from boat to boat through ropes and cables and across a variety of different barriers. This led us to obtain inspiration from clothes developed for climbers. The result is that the clothing now offers a very good fit - combined with excellent freedom of movement," explains Storholmen.

When it comes to choosing fabrics, the researchers have obtained greater inspiration from sports clothes than from other types of work clothing. Instead of thick, insulated suits, the new clothing concept has much more in common with kit worn by skiers.

"We've exploited the shell principle," says Storholmen. "The fabric of the outermost layer is water- and wind-proof and very light and durable," he says. "We've also developed intermediate layers and underwear, so users can select the clothing they need based on weather conditions and their own level of activity," he explains.

The clothing is also specifically adapted to allow good freedom of movement in the neck area - even when wearing a life vest. The same applies to the hood which has plenty of room for the mandatory helmet. What about reflective patches? These are placed strategically on the arms, hood and shoulders, and not across the shoulders and legs which is standard for the majority of existing work clothing.

"Actually, we saw that workers testing the clothing were at first sorry to have to return it following the tests," says Storholmen. "This has to be a good sign," he says.

However, the developers are not satisfied simply with anatomical adjustments, new fabrics and good visibility. There has to be a place for modern technology in this type of clothing. So the suit is equipped with a waterproof pocket for a mobile phone, and will also be fitted with a separate pocket to accommodate a man-overboard alarm.

Comfort equals effective HSE

The fish farms visited by the researchers are in exposed coastal locations, often about a half-hour's boat trip from land. The husbandry workers are housed in floating pontoons, surrounded by net pens. They may have to stay here for as much as a week at a time. There have been situations where workers have fallen into the sea. It is essential that the new work clothing represents an improvement in safety. It must be easy for the wearer to get hold of important tools such as knives, tape and communications equipment.

"An Operations Manager told us that good work clothing is one of the most important aids to effective HSE," says Storholmen. "People standing around getting cold lose concentration on what they're doing, making accidents more likely. We believe that this is thoroughly addressed by the new clothing," he says.

A net pen is an enormous "warehouse," and if a major accident occurs, the consequences for the environment and the company's profitability may be very large.

"Aquaculture uniform"

The clothing currently worn by husbandry workers is essentially the same as the standard primarily developed for the building and construction industry, where competitive pricing is a major issue. The clothing being developed in this project will probably be more expensive.

"Current work clothing is a consumer item," say the researchers. "Our impression is that there is a willingness to pay for a better and more durable product specifically adapted to the needs of the aquaculture industry - a specially designed "aquaculture uniform" which can identify the workers and promote an increase in the pride they have in their profession," they say.

Source: SINTEF

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Electric eels deliver taser-like shocks

News research has discovered that the electric eel delivers Taser-like shocks. Credit: Kenneth Catania, Vanderbilt University

The electric eel -- the scaleless Amazonian fish that can deliver an electrical jolt strong enough to knock down a full-grown horse -- possesses an electroshock system uncannily similar to a Taser.

That is the conclusion of a nine-month study of the way in which the electric eel uses high-voltage electrical discharges to locate and incapacitate its prey. The research was conducted by Vanderbilt University Stevenson Professor of Biological Sciences Kenneth Catania and is described in the article "The shocking predatory strike of the electric eel" published in the Dec. 5 issue of the journal Science.

People have known about electric fish for a long time. The ancient Egyptians used an electric marine ray to treat epilepsy. Michael Faraday used eels to investigate the nature of electricity and eel anatomy helped inspire Volta to create the first battery. Biologists have determined that a six-foot electric eel can generate about 600 volts of electricity -- five times that of a U.S. electrical outlet. This summer scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison announced that they had sequenced the complete electric eel genome.

Until now, however, no one had figured out how the eel's electroshock system actually worked. In order to do so, Catania equipped a large aquarium with a system that can detect the eel's electric signals and obtained several eels, ranging up to four feet in length.

As he began observing the eels' behavior, the biologist discovered that their movements are incredibly fast. They can strike and swallow a worm or small fish in about a tenth of a second. So Catania rigged up a high-speed video system that ran at a thousand frames per second so he could study the eel's actions in slow motion.

Catania recorded three different kinds of electrical discharges from the eels: low-voltage pulses for sensing their environment; short sequences of two or three high-voltage millisecond pulses (called doublets or triplets) given off while hunting; and volleys of high-voltage, high-frequency pulses when capturing prey or defending themselves from attack.

He found that the eel begins its attack on free-swimming prey with a high-frequency volley of high-voltage pulses about 10 to 15 milliseconds before it strikes. In the high-speed video, it became apparent that the fish were completely immobilized within three to four milliseconds after the volley hit them. The paralysis was temporary: If the eel didn't immediately capture a fish, it normally regained its mobility after a short period and swam away.

"It's amazing. The eel can totally inactivate its prey in just three milliseconds. The fish are completely paralyzed," said Catania.

These observations raised an obvious question: How do the eels do it? For that, there was no clear answer in the scientific literature.

"I have some friends in law enforcement, so I was familiar with how a Taser works," said Catania. "And I was struck by the similarity between the eel's volley and a Taser discharge. A Taser delivers 19 high-voltage pulses per second while the electric eel produces 400 pulses per second."

The Taser works by overwhelming the nerves that control the muscles in the target's body, causing the muscles to involuntarily contract. To determine if the eel's electrical discharge had the same effect, Catania walled off part of the aquarium with an electrically permeable barrier. He placed a pithed fish on other side of the barrier from the eel and then fed the eel some earthworms, which triggered its electrical volleys. The volleys that passed through the barrier and struck the fish produced strong muscle contractions.

To determine whether the discharges were acting on the prey's motor neurons -- the nerves that control the muscles -- or on the muscles themselves, he placed two pithed fish behind the barrier: one injected with saline solution and other injected with curare, a paralytic agent that targets the nervous system. The muscles of the fish with the saline continued to contract in response to the eel's electrical discharges but the muscle contractions in the fish given the curare disappeared as the drug took effect. This demonstrated that the eel's electrical discharges were acting through the motor neurons just like Taser discharges.

Next Catania turned his attention to the way in which the eel uses electrical signals for hunting. The eel is nocturnal and doesn't have very good eyesight. So it needs other ways to detect hidden prey.

The biologist determined that the closely space doublets and triplets that the eel emits correspond to the electric signal that motor neurons send to muscles to produce an extremely rapid contraction.

"Normally, you or I or any other animal can't cause all of the muscles in our body to contract at the same time. However, that is just what the eel can cause with this signal," Catania said.
Putting together the fact that the eels are extremely sensitive to water movements with the fact that the whole-body muscle contraction causes the prey's body to twitch, creating water movements that the eel can sense, Catania concluded that the eel is using these signals to locate hidden prey.

To test this hypothesis, Catania connected a pithed fish to a stimulator.. He put the fish in a clear plastic bag to protect it from the eel's emissions. He found that when he stimulated the fish to twitch right after the eel emitted one of its signals, the eel would attack. But, when the fish failed to respond to its signal, the eel did not attack. The result supports the idea that the eel uses its electroshock system to force its prey to reveal their location.

"If you take a step back and think about it, what the eel can do is extremely remarkable," said Catania. "It can use its electrical system to take remote control of its prey's body. If a fish is hiding nearby, the eel can force it to twitch, giving away its location, and if the eel is ready to capture a fish, it can paralyze it so it can't escape."

The research was funded by a Pradel Award from the National Academy of Sciences, a Guggenheim fellowship and National Science Foundation grant 0844743.

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Source: Vanderbilt University

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Dolly Varden are a species of char common in southeast Alaska. The fish shown is in spawning coloration.

Not all species may suffer from climate change. A new analysis shows that Dolly Varden, a species of char common in southeast Alaska, adjust their migrations so they can keep feasting on a key food source -- salmon eggs -- even as shifts in climate altered the timing of salmon spawning.

The resiliency of species to climate change may depend on how well they adapt to climate-driven changes in their food and habitat, such as altered growth of plants they feed on. A mismatch in timing between predators and the availability of prey could cause some species to lose access to food. But others such as Dolly Varden that successfully adjust to shifts in climate and prey offer a climate change story with a happy ending, according to the study published in Freshwater Biology.

Ignoring environmental cues may help this predator

The Dolly Varden's secret appears to be that instead of taking its migration cues from environmental variables such as water temperature or streamflow, the species cues directly off the presence of salmon the Dolly Varden depend on for food, the study found.

"Despite warming temperatures and shifting salmon migrations, Dolly Varden do a great job of following their food," said lead author Chris Sergeant of the National Park Service's Inventory and Monitoring Program in southeast Alaska. "Species that can handle a high degree of variability are the ones that should be most resilient to further changes associated with climate."

Dolly Varden get most of their energy over the course of each year by gorging themselves on salmon eggs, which are abundant in summer and rich in energy thanks to the same fatty acids that make fish healthy for humans. Eggs from any single species of salmon may be available during a narrow spawning window of two to six weeks. The Dolly Varden must follow salmon migrations closely to take full advantage of this annual salmon egg bonanza.

Sticking with salmon to find food

But salmon migrations are shifting as the climate warms. Previous research by the University of Alaska and NOAA Fisheries' Alaska Fisheries Science Center in southeast Alaska's Auke Creek has shown that pink and coho salmon now migrate to their spawning grounds 10 to 17 days earlier while sockeye salmon migrate eight days earlier.

Instead of falling out of synch with salmon, though, seagoing Dolly Varden in Auke Creek have accurately adjusted their annual migrations from the ocean back to freshwater to stick with the salmon. The adjustment has maintained their access to egg meals, according to the new research that includes coauthors from the University of Wyoming and NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

Researchers rely on long record of fish migration data

The research depended on a wealth of fish data from a weir on Auke Creek maintained primarily since 1980 by NOAA Fisheries' Alaska Fisheries Science Center Auke Bay Labs, supported by collaborations with the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. From 1997 to 2006 crews counted and measured Dolly Varden migrating from the ocean, past the weir and into Auke Creek, providing an unusual long-term picture of fish migration times.

"We're really indebted to the people who kept that record going for so long," said Eric Ward of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center. "It turns out to be very valuable in understanding how species are responding to the changing climate."

Researchers in the new study used the weir data to examine the relationship between migrations of salmon and Dolly Varden from year to year. They found the timing of Dolly Varden migration more closely related to the presence and timing of the salmon than on environmental variables such as temperature and precipitation that are often seen as driving animal migrations.

In short, the Dolly Varden are shifting their migration to follow their food instead of following temperatures or other environmental cues that, as the climate changes, might otherwise lead them to migrate at a different time than the salmon that provide their most important food.

The researchers cautioned that it's unclear whether other salmon predators could adjust their timing to follow salmon as effectively as Dolly Varden do, apparently by watching salmon passing by or detecting salmon eggs through smell. But the adaptability of Dolly Varden suggests that at least some species may be more resilient to climate-induced changes in migration timing than ecologists might assume.

Source: NOAA Fisheries West Coast Region

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Managing reefs to benefit coastal communities

Fishing. Credit: Josh Cinner

Coral reefs provide a range of benefits, such as food, opportunities for income and education, but not everyone has the same access to them, according to a new study conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.

The researchers examined how people from 28 fishing communities in Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania and Seychelles benefit from the marine environment.

For many years conservation in developing countries has been based on the assumption that improvements in ecosystem conditions, such as increasing coral reef fish biomass, will benefit the community as a whole.

But Dr Christina Hicks, a social scientist, says this is approach is too simplistic.

"Increased supply tends to benefit the elite, not the community as a whole," Dr Hicks says.

"We need to look at the social and economic access mechanisms that would enable a wider group of people to benefit from reefs and then develop policies based on that information," she says.

Study co-author Professor Josh Cinner from the Coral CoE says the focus on increasing the supply of benefits isn't enough.

"We need to pay more attention to how that benefit is distributed and how it is accessed by different people within a community," Professor Cinner says.

The researchers argue that policy makers need a more inclusive approach to managing coral reefs, which includes a focus on improving wellbeing.

"We tend to focus on economic growth because it is easy to measure, but this should be greatly expanded to include the way people can share in the benefits that flow from reefs," Dr Hicks says.

Source:  ARC Centre of Excellence in Coral Reef Studies.

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You can hear the coral reefs dying, experts say

A lionfish in an Indonesian reef. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Essex

You can hear the sound of former bustling coral reefs dying due to the impact of human activity, according to new research from the Universities of Essex and Exeter.

Coral reefs are amongst the noisiest environments on our planet and healthy reefs can be heard using underwater microphones from kilometres away.

However, scientists have found that coral reefs impacted by human activity, such as overfishing, are much quieter than protected reefs, which can have a big impact on the fish and invertebrates which rely on the reefs for survival.

Led by Dr Julius Piercy, from the University of Essex, the study, which also involved the University of Derby, involved taking acoustic recordings of coral reefs with different levels of protection around islands in the Philippines. The research found that the noise produced by the few remaining resident fish and crustaceans on unprotected reefs was only one third of the sound produced at bustling, healthy reef communities

This is particularly important to the larval stages of reef fish and invertebrates, which spend the first few days of their life away from reefs and use sound as an orientation cue to find their way back. With less sound being produced at impacted reefs, the distance over which larvae can detect habitat is ten times less, impacting on the replenishment of future generations needed to build up and maintain healthy population levels.

"In an environment where underwater noise plays such an important role in the population dynamics of coral reefs, it is alarming to find such a large effect of human impact on the natural acoustic environment," explained Dr Piercy. "This puts reef sound in the spotlight for the people who manage coral reef ecosystems on two counts. Firstly, that they might need to consider reef sound as an integral part of the design of marine protected area networks to ensure that there is sufficient recruitment of larvae within and between reserves and neighbouring reefs. Secondly, this study shows sound can be useful in monitoring the health of coral reefs."

With growing evidence demonstrating the direct impacts of human-made noise on aquatic life, these findings highlight additional indirect human impacts -- such as overfishing and landscape development -- on natural underwater sounds.

Dr Steve Simpson, from Biosciences at the University of Exeter, added: "Taking sound recordings is a cheap, fast and objective way to get a broad idea of whether a reef is in a good condition or not. While it cannot replace detailed visual surveys conducted by snorkelers or divers, it gives a good account of the cryptic and nocturnal species missed in visual census, and quickly provides a general picture of the state of coral reefs without requiring time-consuming surveys and extensive training."

The researchers also found that reef sounds can be detected further away than predicted, increasing previous estimates of the likely detection zone for recruiting larvae and increasing the potential importance of reef sound in attracting new fish and crustaceans to coral reefs.

The study highlights the need to further characterise reef soundscapes and identify acoustic cues that larvae tune into when seeking a suitable home. Dr Simpson said: "We still know very little about what sounds these animals are listening to and it is likely to be very different between species. Combined with recent findings that fish dislike the smell of impacted reefs (another homing cue used by the larvae), there is a real need to understand how human impacts can indirectly affect the success of future generations of reef organisms."

Source: University of Essex

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