Effects of Anthropogenic Sound on Aquatic Life

Overview

There has been, and continues to be, a growing concern about the potential effects of man-made (anthropogenic) sounds on aquatic life. While the initial interest in the subject was with potential effects on marine mammals, concerns have now spread to fishes and invertebrates. Indeed, with fishes and aquatic invertebrates making up the vast majority of the aquatic animal biomass, and their being so critical for the food chains of humans (and marine mammals), any effect on the survival of populations and ecosystems can have profound implications for a wide variety of life.

Over the years, my lab has been doing studies that have examined potential effects of anthropogenic sound on fishes. These sounds have included potential effects of very intense signals such as those from pile driving (e.g., construction), seismic air guns (e.g., oil and gas exploitation) , and high-powered sonars. We have also investigated potential effects of quieter, but longer-lasting, sounds such as those found in aquaculture facilities and from boats and ships. Some of these studies are described below.

I have also been engaged with the development of ideas about regulatory criteria and guidelines that would help control the amount of sound to which aquatic life could be exposed. See this link for a discussion of that work. We recently published a paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution that considers anthropogenic sounds and its regulation from the perspective of the animals potentially affected by the sounds.

One of the real problems, however, is that very little is known about the impact of high intensity sounds on fishes and little is also known about the effects of just a small increase in background noise on fish. Thus, setting of regulations and criteria is still very difficult since there is not the body of knowledge upon which to base decisions.

(Picture in header is from our recent study of the effects of explosives on fishes - Dahl et al., 2019.)

Research on Effects of Sound on Fishes

Work in my laboratory has been involved in a wide range of studies on the effects of anthropogenic sounds on fishes.  The following links lead to these studies.

Effects of pile driving on fishes

Effects of seismic air guns on fishes

Increased background noise and fish hearing

Effects of low and mid-frequency active sonars on fishes

Link to material on criteria and guidelines on potential effects of anthropogenic sound on fishes and other aquatic animals