Is Biological Sound Production Important in the Deep Sea?

Abstract

Over 50 years ago, N. B. Marshall of the British Museum of Natural History hypothesized, based on anatomical studies, that biological sound production by fishes is widespread in the deep sea (Marshall 1954, 1967). Since that time, only a handful of studies have reported observations of possible sound production by deep-sea fishes based on acoustic recordings (Cato 1978; Griffin 1955; Kelly et al. 1985; Mann and Jarvis 2004; McDonald et al. 2006), but no direct attempts to use acoustics to address Marshall’s hypothesis have yet been published. The failure of scientists to investigate the ecological importance of deep-sea sound production has resulted partially from a lack of adequate low-cost technology (Rountree 2008; Rountree et al. 2006). As the first step to begin to address Marshall’s hypothesis, we developed a simple deep-water autonomous underwater listening system (DAULS) for use by ships of opportunity, funded by an MIT Sea Grant College Program seed grant and in collaboration with commercial fishermen.