Development of a Fish Acoustic Buoy and Underwater Logging System (FABULS) Passive Acoustic Recorder For Use In Surveying Responses of Coastal Fishes To Hypoxia and Anoxia Grant uri icon

abstract

  • We are proposing a new all-digital system for recording sounds (Fish Acoustic Buoy and Underwater Logging System 'or F ABULS) and interfacing with existing water quality meters already installed at most National Estuarine Research Reserves. This new digital passive acoustic monitoring system will allow researchers to simultaneously monitor the acoustic environment and the water conditions at multiple locations in an estuary, allowing managers to determine extent of the hypoxia affecting spawning. In recovering and restored estuaries, researchers will be able to monitor improvement of the hypoxia and spawning activity to test the effectiveness of management and estuarine restoration actions. This prototype will be tested at the Rachel Carson National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) in North Carolina. This system is consistent with the goals of the NC Estuarine Research Reserve, which are to identify and track long-term changes in the status, integrity and biological diversity of estuaries. Already, every 30 minutes water quality meters deployed within the Rachel Carson NERR sample such parameters as; salinity, water temperature, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, depth and chlorophyll a. A weather station provides hourly data on air temperature, barometric pressure, precipitation, wind velocity, relative humidity and solar radiation. Monthly nutrient samples are also collected and analyzed. The F ABULS system will add the dimension of real time monitoring of fish habitat use and the correlation of the water quality data and the passive acoustic data.

date/time interval

  • June 2004 - June 2005