An automated, real time classification system for biological and anthropogenic sounds from fixed ocean observatories

The automated, real time classification of acoustic events in the marine environment is an important tool to study anthropogenic sound pollution, marine mammals and for mitigating human activities that are potentially harmful. We present a real time classification system targeted at many important groups of acoustic events (clicks, buzzes, calls, whistles from several cetacean species, tonal and impulsive shipping noise and explosions). The achieved classification performance indicates that the system will be useful to pre-process the very large data volume that can be gathered during long term acoustic monitoring campaigns or to detect the presence of cetaceans in real time for mitigation.Peer Reviewe

Evidence of Cnidarians sensitivity to sound after exposure to low frequency underwater sources

Jellyfishes represent a group of species that play an important role in oceans, particularly as a food source for different taxa and as a predator of fish larvae and planktonic prey. The massive introduction of artificial sound sources in the oceans has become a concern to science and society. While we are only beginning to understand that non-hearing specialists like cephalopods can be affected by anthropogenic noises and regulation is underway to measure European water noise levels, we still don’t know yet if the impact of sound may be extended to other lower level taxa of the food web. Here we exposed two species of Mediterranean Scyphozoan medusa, Cotylorhiza tuberculata and Rhizostoma pulmo to a sweep of low frequency sounds. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed injuries in the statocyst sensory epithelium of both species after exposure to sound, that are consistent with the manifestation of a massive acoustic trauma observed in other species. The presence of acoustic trauma in marine species that are not hearing specialists, like medusa, shows the magnitude of the problem of noise pollution and the complexity of the task to determine threshold values that would help building up regulation to prevent permanent damage of the ecosystems.Postprint (published version

Architecture for the real-time monitoring of noise pollution and marine mammal activity

As acoustic pollution in the oceans is increasing, it is becoming more important to monitor it, with special attention on its effects on the behaviour of cetaceans. In the near future governments may require constant monitoring during sea construction projects or operations. One major construction activity in the coming years will be the construction of wind farms. Not only will these farms produce a constant low level noise in their direct environment while operating, but the building of the foundations necessary to support the wind mills will produce impulsive noise dangerous to any cetaceans in the area and lethal to, for example, fish larvae. For these reasons, noise monitoring has become one of the objectives of the European Seafloor Observation Network (ESONET), to investigate the level of noise produced around European coastlines and its impact on the environment and cetaceans especially. Presented is the architecture for noise and marine mammal monitoring as it is currently implemented in ESONET through the LIDO (Listening to the Deep Ocean Environment) project. LIDO will detect in real-time changes in the background noise levels and register acoustic events (natural, biological and anthropogenic), and identify and track the sources when possible. As the system will be implemented in varying environments, a modular design is used that can be adapted easily, based on local requirements. While the system will most often run from a shore station, a more limited version is developed that can run autonomously with minimal power requirements.Peer Reviewe

A novel approach to real-time range estimation of underwater acoustic sources using supervised machine learning

© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The proposed paper introduces a novel method for range estimation of acoustic sources, both cetaceans and industrial sources, in deep sea environments using supervised learning with neural networks in the contex of a single sensor, a compact array, or a small aperture towed array. The presented results have potential both for industrial impact and for the conservation and density estimation of cetaceans. With an average error of 4.3% for ranges up to 8 kilometers and typically below 300 meters, those results are challenging and to our knowledge they are unprecedented for an automated real-time solution.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Evidence of Cnidarians sensitivity to sound after exposure to low frequency underwater sources

16 pages, 11 figuresCorrigendum: Evidence of Cnidarians sensitivity to sound after exposure to low frequency underwater sources Scientific Reports 7: 43193 (2017) https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep43193Jellyfishes represent a group of species that play an important role in oceans, particularly as a food source for different taxa and as a predator of fish larvae and planktonic prey. The massive introduction of artificial sound sources in the oceans has become a concern to science and society. While we are only beginning to understand that non-hearing specialists like cephalopods can be affected by anthropogenic noises and regulation is underway to measure European water noise levels, we still don’t know yet if the impact of sound may be extended to other lower level taxa of the food web. Here we exposed two species of Mediterranean Scyphozoan medusa, Cotylorhiza tuberculata and Rhizostoma pulmo to a sweep of low frequency sounds. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed injuries in the statocyst sensory epithelium of both species after exposure to sound, that are consistent with the manifestation of a massive acoustic trauma observed in other species. The presence of acoustic trauma in marine species that are not hearing specialists, like medusa, shows the magnitude of the problem of noise pollution and the complexity of the task to determine threshold values that would help building up regulation to prevent permanent damage of the ecosystemsThis work was developed in the frame of the collaborative project AQUO (Achieve QUieter Oceans by shipping noise footprint reduction), funded by the European Commission within the Call FP7 SST.2012.1.1-1: Assessment and mitigation of noise impacts of the maritime transport on the marine environment, Grant agreement no. 314227, coordinated topic “The Ocean of Tomorrow”Peer Reviewe