Coral reef soundscapes: The use of passive acoustic monitoring for long-term ecological survey

Abstract

Ecosystem health assessment relies on effective long-term survey techniques. Passive acoustics offers an alternative approach to long-term monitoring of coral reefs, yet its full management applicability remains undetermined. This thesis investigates several coral reef soundscape topics, with Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as an example, including categorising biological reef sounds, identifying and explaining fish choruses temporal patterns, quantifying the contribution of anthropogenic noise, and determining how large disturbance events may influence coral reef soundscapes over time.