Departamento de Biologia Animal and cE3c_Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal; MARE_Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ISPA, Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, Portugal, and Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
Equipe de Neuro-Ethologie Sensorielle; (ENES/CRNL, CNRS UMR 5292, Inserm UMR S 1028) Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, Université Jean-Monnet de Lyon/Saint-Etienne, Saint-Etienne, France.
Mar Pollut Bull. 2021 Nov;172:112824. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2021.112824. Epub 2021 Aug 12.
Aquatic noise has increased in last decades imposing new constraints on aquatic animals' acoustic communication. Meagre (Argyrosomus regius) produce loud choruses during the breeding season, likely facilitating aggregations and mating, and are thus amenable to being impacted by anthropogenic noise. We assessed the impact of boat noise on this species acoustic communication by: evaluating possible masking effects of boat noise on hearing using Auditory Evoked Potentials (AEP) and inspecting changes in chorus sound levels from free ranging fish upon boat passages. Our results point to a significant masking effect of anthropogenic noise since we observed a reduction of ca. 20 dB on the ability to discriminate conspecific calls when exposed to boat noise. Furthermore, we verified a reduction in chorus energy during ferryboat passages, a behavioural effect that might ultimately impact spawning. This study is one of few addressing the effects of boat noise by combining different methodologies both in the lab and with free ranging animals.
在过去几十年中，水生噪声不断增加，对水生动物的声学通讯造成了新的限制。鲷鱼（Argyrosomus regius）在繁殖季节会发出响亮的合唱声，这可能有助于它们聚集和交配，因此容易受到人为噪声的影响。我们通过以下两种方法评估了船只噪声对该物种声学通讯的影响：使用听觉诱发电位（AEP）评估船只噪声对听觉的可能掩蔽效应，以及检查自由游动鱼类在船只通过时合唱声级的变化。我们的结果表明，人为噪声具有显著的掩蔽效应，因为当暴露于船只噪声时，我们观察到对同种鱼类叫声的辨别能力降低了约 20 分贝。此外，我们还验证了渡轮通过时合唱能量的减少，这种行为效应可能最终会影响产卵。这项研究是为数不多的通过结合实验室和自由游动动物的不同方法来研究船只噪声影响的研究之一。
