Comparison of Two Soundscapes: An Opportunity to Assess the Dominance of Biophony Versus Anthropophony

Abstract

Sound travels further through water than light and is one reason why many marine animals use sound to communicate and gain information about their surroundings. Scientists collect recordings of these underwater sounds to gain information on species’ habitat use, abundance, distribution, density, and behavior. In waters where visibility is severely limited or access is difficult or cost-intensive, passive acoustic monitoring is a particularly important technique for obtaining such biological information over space and time. The “soundscape” of an ecosystem is defined as the characterization of all the acoustic sources present in a certain place (Wilford et al., 2021). A soundscape includes three fundamental sound source types (Figure 1): (1) anthropophony, or sounds associated with human activity; (2) biophony, or sounds produced by animals; and (3) geophony, or sounds generated by physical events such as waves, earthquakes, or rain (Pijanowski et al., 2011). Studying soundscapes can provide biological information for a specific habitat, which could then be linked to ecosystem health status and other bioindicators. This information can be used to monitor the habitat over time, allowing for rapid detection of habitat degradation, such as in response to human-driven events. Comparison of Two Soundscapes: An Opportunity to Assess the Dominance of Biophony Versus Anthropophony