https://reasonstobecheerful.world/coral-reefs-healthy-noise/
"You might have heard that the Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest
collection of coral reefs, a natural wonder stretching over 1,400 miles off
Australia’s Queensland coast, hosting 400 types of coral and thousands of fish
species. Since 1981, it has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
and most of its ecosystem is protected.
But you might not know that it is also the stage for daily underwater concerts.
Take a dive or listen to marine biologist Steven Simpson’s recordings and you
hear grunt fish grunt, shrimps snap, damselfish chirp, clownfish grumble, sperm
whales click and humpback whales sing their soprano mating songs that are
audible over tens of miles.
“When I tell them fish have ears, people look at me like I’m mad,” says
University of Bristol professor Steve Simpson. He and his colleagues were
initially ridiculed by their peers when they started eavesdropping on fish
communication nearly 20 years ago, but their sound experiments have been
recreated successfully so many times that they are established science now.
Recent research has revealed that dolphins call each other by name, turtle
embryos coordinate their birth with one another from inside their eggs, and a
coral reef is also a symphony that attracts coral larvae. Much like doctors use
stethoscopes to assess the healthy heartbeat of a patient, the
interdisciplinary science of ecoacoustics, which investigates natural sounds
and their relationship with the environment, has emerged as an effective
solution not only for monitoring the health of marine ecosystems, but also for
restoring them."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
