From the “Boeing” of the minke whale to the “drum” of the red piranha, scientists are documenting more sounds in our world’s oceans, rivers, and lakes every year. Now, a team of experts wants to go ahead and create a water noise reference library to monitor the health of marine ecosystems.
The Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds, “Glubs,” will include all humpback whale “thwop,” “muah,” and “boops” as well as man-made underwater sounds and geophysical recordings of ice vortices and winds, according to the report. Frontier Research in Ecology and Evolution.
Of the approximately 250,000 known marine species, scientists believe all 126 mammals make noise. At least 100 invertebrates and 1,000 of the world’s 34,000 fish species are known to make sounds, but experts believe many more are waiting to be discovered and recognized.
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By bringing together libraries of fish, frogs, and other marine species found together, it is hoped the library can help identify lullabies, jingles, and aquatic ecosystem jingles. Some fish species seem to develop geographic dialects, while blue whale calls are known to evolve over time.
“The world’s most abundant habitat is aquatic life, rich in the sounds produced by a variety of animals,” said lead author Miles Parsons of the Australian Institute of Oceanography. “With biodiversity decreasing worldwide, and humans relentlessly changing the underwater sound landscape, there is a need to document, identify and understand the source of underwater animal sounds before they could potentially disappear.”
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In the examples provided by experts, the Madagascar skunk produces a different fighting sound than the Indonesian. The calls of the fin whales differ between populations in the northern and southern hemispheres and throughout the seasons, whereas the calls of pilot whales are similar around the world.
Existing sites like fish sound And Frog ID It already hosts a water noise inventory. But it is hoped that one platform will enable the use of AI identification of unknown voices while also enabling scientists to monitor the health of coral reefs, open oceans, and freshwater ecosystems. Under the proposal, the public will be able to contribute their own underwater footage.
“Collectively, there are now several million hours of recording worldwide that can be assessed for a large number of known and as yet unidentified biological sounds” (IQOE) and a scientist at Rockefeller University, said Jesse Ausubel, co-founder of International Pacific Experiments.
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Underwater noise monitoring has been used to study the effects of storms and how prey changes its behavior in the presence of predators, and to document migration patterns of large whales. Many species of fish and invertebrates are nocturnal, making acoustic monitoring the only viable study method.
“The diversity of human songs includes love songs and works, lullabies, songs, and songs,” says Ausubel. Sea animals must sing love songs. Perhaps the artificial intelligence applied to the World Library can help us understand these words and many others.”
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