Dantzker, M. S. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2026

Hawaiian Fish Sounds and their Potential as Acoustic Ecological Indicators on Coral Reefs

Coral reef monitoring needs scalable, non-invasive tools to complement resource-intensive traditional survey methods. Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) offers a promising supplement, but its effectiveness is limited by the difficulty of attributing recorded sounds to species outside of previously well-characterized taxa. Using Omnidirectional Underwater Passive Acoustic Cameras (UPAC-360), we identified sounds from 31 reef fish species across 14 families on the Kona coast of Hawaii Island, including 13 not previously documented as soniferous. By releasing video and audio specimens, we have created the largest open-access collection of in-situ reef fish sounds to date for the Pacific. A subset of acoustically distinctive taxa--such as Hawaiian Dascyllus (Dascyllus albisella), Lei Triggerfish (Sufflamen bursa), soldierfishes (Myripristis spp.), wrasses, and herbivorous grazers--were identifiable in PAM recordings through manual acoustic and spectrogram review. Through identifying particular sounds linked to species with different ecological roles, these sounds have the potential to serve as indicators of reef function to increase the information and value coming from PAM surveys of Hawaiian and Pacific coral reefs.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

Deciphering Coral Reef Soundscapes Utilizing 360 Video and Spatial Audio

Coral reef soundscapes hold an untapped wealth of biodiversity information. While they are easy to record, they are nearly impossible to decipher because we know very little about which sound is made by which species. With identified fish sounds, acoustic monitoring can directly measure biodiversity, detect key or invasive species, identify behavioral events and frequencies, and estimate abundance, all at temporal and spatial scales not possible with methods like eDNA or visual surveys. Using a novel approach to visualize underwater sound, we present the most extensive collection of identified natural sounds from reef-associated Atlantic fishes. These sounds were all ascribed to species in situ on a crowded Caribbean coral reef. The soundfield analysis technique combines visualizations of spatial audio with 360{degrees} video recordings, a method not previously accomplished underwater. We used these species identifications to decipher a representative section of a soundscape recording from a separate recording device. We have collected our identified recordings into a growing open-access resource to catalyze passive acoustic monitoring research, enabling a species-specific resolution of coral reef soundscape dynamics and providing critical validated information for developing machine learning models required to analyze an ever-expanding collection of long-term recordings.

ecology↗