Damselfish can make pops, clicks and chirps by grinding their teeth. When seeking a mate, some can make more high-pitched sounds.Another coral reef dweller, the snapping shrimp, makes a sound with its
Damselfish can make pops, clicks and chirps by grinding their teeth. When seeking a mate, some can make more high-pitched sounds.
Another coral reef dweller, the snapping shrimp, makes a sound with its large claw to stun its prey or deter predators. A cavitation bubble is formed when the claw opens and closes rapidly, and the sound is produced when the bubble collapses.
It’s sounds like these that can be used as a proxy measure for reef health. Generally, a noisy reef is a healthy reef, but to gain a more detailed understanding than this, it is important to consider where, when and how the sound is measured.
A simple example: coral reefs tend to be noisier at dawn and dusk, and nighttime sounds can differ to those during the day.
In a series of papers, Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) researchers have found that coral reef soundscapes vary significantly across reef habitats and can reflect subtle differences in biological communities.
The scientists used a tool called the Soundscape Code, a method that summarizes soundscape amplitude, impulsiveness, periodicity and uniformity, to help them understand the characteristics of the reef soundscape. This helped them to detect different soundscapes
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