Sperm whale long-range echolocation sounds revealed by ANTARES, a deep-sea neutrino telescope

[EN] Despite dedicated research has been carried out to adequately map the distribution of the sperm whale in the Mediterranean Sea, unlike other regions of the world, the species population status is still presently uncertain. The analysis of two years of continuous acoustic data provided by the ANTARES neutrino telescope revealed the year-round presence of sperm whales in the Ligurian Sea, probably associated with the availability of cephalopods in the region. The presence of the Ligurian Sea sperm whales was demonstrated through the real-time analysis of audio data streamed from a cabled-to- shore deep-sea observatory that allowed the hourly tracking of their long-range echolocation behaviour on the Internet. Interestingly, the same acoustic analysis indicated that the occurrence of surface shipping noise would apparently not condition the foraging behaviour of the sperm whale in the area, since shipping noise was almost always present when sperm whales were acoustically detected. The continuous presence of the sperm whale in the region confirms the ecological value of the Ligurian sea and the importance of ANTARES to help monitoring its ecosystemsThe authors acknowledge the financial support of the funding agencies: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a lenergie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA), la Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), IdEx program and UnivEarthS Labex program at Sorbonne Paris Cite (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02), Region Ile-de-France (DIM-ACAV), Region Alsace (contrat CPER), Region Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur, Departement du Var and Ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie (FOM), Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; Council of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and leading scientific schools supporting grants, Russia; National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania; Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad (MINECO), Prometeo and Grisolia programs of Generalitat Valenciana and MultiDark, Spain; Agence de l'Oriental and CNRST, Morocco. 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On-board underwater glider real-time acoustic environment sensing

Underwater gliders are autonomous vehicles that use small changes in their buoyancy in conjunction with wings to convert vertical motion to horizontal, and thereby propel themselves forward, with very low power consumption, through the ocean for a long period of time. Gliders typically make measurements such as temperature, conductivity (to calculate salinity), currents, chlorophyll fluorescence, optical backscatter and bottom depth. However, such a platform could be a good candidate if properly equipped with an acoustic payload to persistently monitor the underwater acoustic environment. For that reason, NURC and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) decided in 2010 to jointly develop a glider acoustic payload that would provide the recording of two hydrophones but also, which is quite unique, provide in addition a real-time detection / classification (DC) capability. The DC capability will allow, while the glider being at-sea, to provide real-time feedback on the acoustic environment the glider is passing by, instead of only providing recording capability for postprocessing work as previously done in the past. The purpose of the paper is to describe the characteristics of the system that has been developed and additionally reports at-sea results from a deep-water WEBB glider operating in the Mediterranean Sea. Those results demonstrate the capability of the developed acoustic payload to detect and classify marine mammals in real-time within the glider. Examples of the noise generated by the glider are also presented