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. 2017 Nov 14:5:e4019.
doi: 10.7717/peerj.4019. eCollection 2017.

Snapshot recordings provide a first description of the acoustic signatures of deeper habitats adjacent to coral reefs of Moorea

Frédéric Bertucci  1   2 , Eric Parmentier  2 , Cécile Berthe  1 , Marc Besson  1   3 , Anthony D Hawkins  4 , Thierry Aubin  5 , David Lecchini  1   6
Affiliations

Snapshot recordings provide a first description of the acoustic signatures of deeper habitats adjacent to coral reefs of Moorea

Frédéric Bertucci et al. PeerJ. .

Abstract

Acoustic recording has been recognized as a valuable tool for non-intrusive monitoring of the marine environment, complementing traditional visual surveys. Acoustic surveys conducted on coral ecosystems have so far been restricted to barrier reefs and to shallow depths (10-30 m). Since they may provide refuge for coral reef organisms, the monitoring of outer reef slopes and describing of the soundscapes of deeper environment could provide insights into the characteristics of different biotopes of coral ecosystems. In this study, the acoustic features of four different habitats, with different topographies and substrates, located at different depths from 10 to 100 m, were recorded during day-time on the outer reef slope of the north Coast of Moorea Island (French Polynesia). Barrier reefs appeared to be the noisiest habitats whereas the average sound levels at other habitats decreased with their distance from the reef and with increasing depth. However, sound levels were higher than expected by propagation models, supporting that these habitats possess their own sound sources. While reef sounds are known to attract marine larvae, sounds from deeper habitats may then also have a non-negligible attractive potential, coming into play before the reef itself.

Keywords: Conservation; Coral reefs; Ecoacoustics; Mesophotic reefs; Passive acoustics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare there are no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Maps of Moorea Island (A), showing the locations of the recording sites along the 3 transects on the North Coast (B).
BR, barrier reef; SP, sandy plain; RS, reef slope and DO, reef drop-off. Maps drawn by the authors from an aerial photograph of Moorea taken by the CRIOBE in 2008 from a private plane. Surrounding black lines along the coasts of the island indicate barrier reefs.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Average power spectra of the four different habitats recorded along transect 1 (A), 2 (B) and 3 (C) at the North Coast of Moorea.
Blue line, barrier reef (BR); red line, sandy plain (SP); green line, reef slope (RS) and purple line, reef drop-off (DO). The 20 Hz–2.5 kHz frequency band is presented. Values are mean ± S.D.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Between-habitat comparisons of sound intensities for the three transects in the 20 Hz–2.5 kHz frequency band.
Transects 1 (A), 2 (B) and 3 (C). BR, barrier reef; SP, sandy plain; RS, reef slope and DO, reef drop-off. Two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-hoc tests for pairwise comparisons; Black: P < 0.05, Grey: non-significant difference.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Between-transect comparisons of sound intensities for each recorded habitat in the 20 Hz–2.5 kHz frequency band.
BR, barrier reef (A); SP, sandy plain (B); RS, reef slope (C) and DO, reef drop-off (D). Two-way ANOVA followed by Tukey’s post-hoc tests for pairwise comparisons; Black: P < 0.05, Grey: non-significant difference.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Ambient sound pressure levels (RMS values in dB re: 1 µPa) in the 20 Hz–2.5 kHz frequency band for each habitat along the three transects.
The four different habitats are separated by dashed lines. Boxes represent the first and third quartiles, thick horizontal bars are the median (second quartile) and whiskers correspond to the range (min–max) of the distributions. Kruskal–Wallis tests followed by Tukey’s post hoc tests for pairwise comparisons. Asterisks show significant differences between transects at P < 0.05.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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