A Field-Ready Playback System for Eco-Acoustic and Settlement Studies

鉴于人类对海洋的利用不断扩大，越来越需要了解自然和人为噪声对声敏感类群的影响。鉴于海洋变化的速度，以及海洋动物如何利用声音进行交流、发现捕食者、寻找猎物和寻找合适的栖息地，科学仍在揭开这一事实的面纱，理解声生态学至关重要。为了获得这种知识，需要一种成本效益高、持续时间长的工具，使研究人员能够轻松地以实验方式重放声音提示，操纵声音场景，并在实地实验中引入“噪音”，以解决海洋生态和保护方面的新问题。这项工作将支持构建和测试一种可扩展、经济高效、面向海洋的长持续时间声音回放工具。这一工具将使科学家能够收集关于声音如何被不同的海洋动物使用并影响的新见解。这项研究将集中对珊瑚礁进行试点测试，珊瑚礁是濒危的生物多样性中心，支持数十亿美元的生态系统服务，并寻求加强对年轻珊瑚的吸引和定居，以此作为支持和潜在重建珊瑚礁的一种方法。该项目将纳入和培训本科生和研究生、青年技术人员和工程师，包括代表人数不足的少数民族，在这一开发和测试的各个方面。这一努力旨在自给自足，以便一旦完成，其他科学家和利益攸关方将能够利用声学丰富和新的问题来支持珊瑚礁的再开发，并进行以前无法获得的生态系统研究。这项科学将通过回放声景的Beta实验进行试点和优化，以吸引珊瑚幼虫并诱导在珊瑚礁上定居。参与的团队将利用对珊瑚礁声景、他们自己的关键数据和测试版系统的新理解，使这一声学中介的回放和幼虫定居调查工具成为可能。该系统的技术组件将是耐用的，并针对珊瑚礁声音的回放进行了优化，从而增强了其动态范围、声音传播和各种声音模式。试点工具将在一个已建立的美属维尔京群岛外勤站进行测试和优化，并对音景和社区动态进行多年测量。额外的测试和整合的用户反馈将在第二年出现在一个新的地点。通过这些校准、迭代和测试，该项目将为科学家和利益相关者的工具箱提供一个重要的新的基于自然的工具，以围绕海洋生态、变化的海洋、物理海洋学和更广泛的基础海洋研究领域进行新颖的声学研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Given human’s expanding use of the ocean, there is increasing need to understand natural and anthropogenic noise impacts to sound-sensitive taxa. Understanding acoustic ecology is vital as given rates of ocean changes and the fact that science is still unraveling how marine animals use sound to communicate, detect predators, seek prey and find suitable habitat. To gain this knowledge there is a need for a cost-effective, extended-duration tool that allows researchers to easily and experimentally replay sound cues, manipulate soundscapes and introduce ‘noise’ in field-based experiments to address new questions in ocean ecology and conservation. This effort will support the build and testing of a scalable, cost-effective, ocean-ready and long-duration sound playback tool. This tool will enable scientists to gather new insight into how sound is used by and impacts diverse marine fauna. The research will focus pilot tests on coral reefs, imperiled hubs of biodiversity that support billions of USD in ecosystem services, and seek to enhance the attraction and settlement of young corals as a method to support and potentially rebuild reefs. The project will incorporate and train undergraduate and graduate students, young technicians, and engineers, including underrepresented minorities, in all aspects of this development and testing. This effort is designed to be self-sustaining so that once it is completed, other scientists and stakeholders will be able to use acoustic enrichment and new questions to support the redevelopment of reefs and conduct previously unobtainable ecosystem studies. The science will be piloted and optimized through beta-experiments replaying soundscapes to attract coral larvae and induce settlement onto reefs. The team involved will leverage the emerging understanding of reef soundscapes, their own key data, and a beta-system, to enable this acoustically-mediated playback and larval settlement investigation tool. The technical components of the system will be durable and optimized for the playback of reef sounds, enhancing its dynamic range, sound propagation, and variety of sound patterns. The pilot tool will be tested and optimized at an established US Virgin Islands field station with years of measurements on soundscapes and community dynamics. Additional testing and user-feedback integrated will occur a new site in Year 2. From these calibrations, iterations and tests, the project will provide an important new natural-based instrument for the toolboxes of scientists and stakeholders to conduct novel acoustics studies surrounding the fields of marine ecology, changing oceans, physical oceanography, and broader basic ocean research.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.