Deciphering the soundscapes of the coastal shelf: Using passive acoustics for assessing fish dynamics in Southern California kelp forests

Passive acoustics are a relatively new and cost-effective method for monitoring animal activities and diversity, as well as other environmental features. This project will develop and test a new acoustic-optical protocol to evaluate habitat occupancy in the southern California kelp forest, developing metrics for linking local soundscape and species activity and presence. It will also create a baseline catalog of acoustical signals for a subset of species that are important in the kelp ecosystem, which will be made available on Širović’s lab page. If successful, the acoustic protocol developed will reduce the cost and increase the precision of underwater animal surveys.