Seagrass, a marine plant that blooms underwater, has many environmental advantages – from storing carbon to stopping coastal erosion. This 3D habitat is usually a haven for wildlife, but with so many seagrass restoration projects happens worldwideSuccess will be difficult to quantify.
In this episode of The weekly conversation In the podcast, we consult with Isabel Key, a marine ecologist on the University of Edinburgh within the UK, about her work recording the sounds of Scottish seagrass meadows to learn more concerning the creatures that live there. She also explains that this is step one towards developing a seagrass sound library and possibly even artificial intelligence tools that would help us higher understand the sounds of the ocean.
Recording sounds in seagrass is a useful gizmo since it allows researchers like Key to listen and discover creatures that can’t be seen. They could also be camouflaged, hiding or nocturnal. It can be an inexpensive and straightforward method that causes minimal disturbance.
After collecting audio clips recorded in seagrass meadows off the coast of Scotland, Key analyses her recordings using “acoustic indices”. “These are a measure of the complexity of the soundscape,” she explains. “This includes animal noises, but additionally waves, boat noise and the clanking of anchor chains.”
Key also assesses the phonetic richness by listening to one-minute clips:
Using the spectrogram – a visible representation of those sounds – I can count how many alternative animal sounds are present. This is time-consuming, but gives an excellent insight.
She notices a soundscape typical of seagrass, with certain sounds occurring more ceaselessly there than in sandy habitats. “Fish make deep grunting, burping or purring noises. Crabs make higher-pitched metallic scratching noises,” she says.
Isabel Key, CC BY-NC-ND
Not only did she hear sounds from sea creatures, waves and human activity, but she also heard a more surprising sound coming from the seagrass itself.
Once a more comprehensive sound library will be built, machine learning may very well be used to learn how seagrass meadows and other marine habitats are faring, each in Scotland and in oceans across the globe.
Listen to the complete interview with Issy Key and a few of her seaweed sound recordings on The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Disclosure statement: Isabel Key receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and NatureScot.
