How is sound used to study the distribution of marine fishes?
Passive Acoustics Many fishes use sound to attract mates for courtship and spawning. Typically it is the males that produce species-specific low frequency (<500Hz) sounds via the swim bladder - sonic muscle mechanism. Many fishes form large chorusing aggregations nightly during the spawning season and collectively produce sounds well above background levels. Scientists can listen to the nightly vocalizations, identify the species, and document the time and location where spawning occurs. Much of the early work on this topic was conducted by Marie Poland Fish and William H. Mowbray in the northwest Atlantic. Fishes of the Family Gadidae, including cod and haddock, are important in fisheries. Vocalizations by these fishes have similar frequency ranges, but different pulse characteristics. Scientists have used passive acoustics to discover a large spawning aggregation of haddock in an Arctic fjord in northern Norway. This is the first nearshore spawning site documented for this species.
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