Use of Hydroacoustics to Examine Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Pacific Salmon

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Use of Hydroacoustics to Examine Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Pacific Salmon USE OF HYDROACOUSTICS TO EXAMINE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF PACIFIC SALMON (ONCORHYNCHUS SPP.) BEHAVIOR DURING SPAWNING MIGRATIONS IN NUSHAGAK RIVER, ALASKA. A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of Alaska Pacific University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Science in Environmental Science By Samantha C. Simpson April 2014 UMI Number: 1555183 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI 1555183 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106 - 1346 ii I grant Alaska Pacific University the non-exclusive right to use this work for the purpose of making single copies available to the public on a not-for-profit basis if the University’s circulating copy is lost or destroyed. ____________________________________ Samantha Simpson Date________________________________ iii USE OF HYDROACOUSTICS TO EXAMINE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL PATTERNS OF PACIFIC SALMON (ONCORHYNCHUS SPP.) BEHAVIOR DURING SPAWNING MIGRATIONS IN NUSHAGAK RIVER, ALASKA. by Samantha C. Simpson THESIS APPROVED: Thesis Committee _____________________________ ________________ Chairperson Date Bradley Harris, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Alaska Pacific University _____________________________ ________________ Thesis Committee Date Gregory Buck Assistant Area Research Biologist, Bristol Bay Alaska Department of Fish and Game _____________________________ ________________ Thesis Committee Date Roman Dial, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Alaska Pacific University APPROVED: _____________________________ ________________ Tracy Stewart, Ph.D. Date Academic Dean Alaska Pacific University i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to my committee members, Drs. Bradley Harris and Roman Dial, and Gregory Buck for their persistent guidance, expertise, and encouragement throughout this process. I cannot find words to express my sincere gratitude for my advisor, Dr. Harris, for energetically accepting me as his first graduate student upon his arrival at APU, and his continued and convincing excitement about my project, especially when things seemed hopeless to me. I am grateful for his ideas and positive outlook on the project, as well as all the hours spent on my thesis development and review. Thank you for being so easy and enjoyable to work with. I am tremendously grateful for all the feedback and statistics instruction received from Dr. Dial, and his expertise raised the content of this thesis. While my journey on this thesis is complete, I would not have arrived here if it wasn’t for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and Greg Buck. His exclusive knowledge of Nushagak River salmon, anadromous fish ecology, and fisheries management in Alaska made for worthwhile application of this thesis. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game provided invaluable support specifically in the early stages of this project, and I would like to thank Jeff Regnart, Tim Baker, Lowell Fair, Suzanne Maxwell, and April Faulkner for their guidance and expertise, in addition to the Nushagak River sonar crews who keep the DIDSON project running successfully, year after year. I am very fortunate to have a wonderful group of colleagues who assisted in the completion and review of this thesis, from both the fisheries lab at APU and in my professional career. Nick Tucker of APU played a vital role in getting echograms ii processed and worked at incredible speeds, and Sarah Webster and Jenipher Cate conducted expeditious and careful peer reviews of my work. Bill Hanot and Sergio da Costa, of Soundmetrics Corp., provided considerable technical support when DIDSON questions arose. Thank you all for contributing your valuable time to enhance this project. I am very thankful for the education I have received from both my undergraduate and graduate institutions, and must also thank Dr. Ana irovi for getting me started in the graduate program at APU and encouraging me to develop a project within my personal interests. I would not have found myself in this program without recognizing my love for Alaska and its fascinating environment; Mitch Osborne, Ray Hander, and Theresa Tanner helped me to come to this realization early on in my fisheries career and have provided moral support throughout the duration of this thesis. I truly have an incredible group of friends, coworkers, and even some acquaintances who have constantly reminded me over the past several years to get my thesis completed (you know who you are). Words cannot describe the positive influence that your persistent badgering has had on me. Thank you all for listening to my thesis quandaries whether it was at our hockey games, while out on runs, or over a few adult beverages. Additionally, moral support and encouragement from RJM and BRW were indispensable. Thank you. Last but not least, I owe immeasurable gratitude to my parents, Jeff and Lori, and brother, Jay, for their love and everlasting support of my goals. iii ABSTRACT The Nushagak River, Bristol Bay, Alaska, supports one of the largest wild sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) runs in the state and also supports overlapping runs of chum (O. keta) and Chinook (O. tshawytscha) salmon. Each summer, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game deploys dual-frequency identification sonar (DIDSON) on the river to enumerate salmon to monitor escapement goals; however, salmon behavior and spawning run characteristics at the site are not incorporated into management. We investigated the feasibility of using Nushagak River DIDSON data from 2008-2011 to identify trends in run timing and compare passage rates to local environmental conditions, including tide, light intensity, and water temperature. We also used spatial analysis to examine aggregation behavior of salmon at the DIDSON site at multiple distance scales. Between all four years, run timing only varied within a few days (< 1 week), regardless of water temperature. In 2009 and 2011, more salmon passed upriver during slack and ebb tides than during flood tide. Salmon were never completely spatially random, and distance scales of aggregation behavior were influenced by run period and photo period. When examining all factors together, the interaction between salmon density and run period affected distance at maximum aggregation. This research used hydroacoustics for a multi-level approach to investigating spatiotemporal patterns of Pacific salmon relative to environmental factors during their spawning migration and may help refine in-season monitoring and management of the fishery. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................................ vi LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ viii GENERAL INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1 .................................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.2 METHODS ................................................................................................................................ 9 Site Description ............................................................................................................................ 9 DIDSON Recording ................................................................................................................... 11 Species Apportionment .............................................................................................................. 13 Light Intensity ............................................................................................................................ 13 Temperature ............................................................................................................................... 16 Tide ............................................................................................................................................ 16 1.3 RESULTS ................................................................................................................................ 18 Light Intensity ............................................................................................................................ 20 Temperature ............................................................................................................................... 27 Tide ............................................................................................................................................ 31 1.4 DISCUSSION .........................................................................................................................
Recommended publications
  • Can We Distinguish Acoustically Between Vendace Stock and Stickleback Stock in Lake Pluszne?
    CAN WE DISTINGUISH ACOUSTICALLY BETWEEN VENDACE STOCK AND STICKLEBACK STOCK IN LAKE PLUSZNE? LECH DOROSZCZYK1, BRONISŁAW DŁUGOSZEWSKI1, MAŁGORZATA 2 GODLEWSKA 1 Stanisław Sakowicz Inland Fisheries Institute Oczapowskiego 10, 10-719 Olsztyn, Poland [email protected] 2International Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, European Regional Centre for Ecohydrology under auspices of UNESCO Tylna 3, 90-364 Łódź, Poland [email protected] Hydroacoustical monitoring of vendace stocks in lake Pluszne is performed regularly since 90-ties. However, in 2009 the lack of oxygen below the thermocline prevented fish to occupy the hypolimnion, which is its natural habitat. This led to a mixture of vendace and other fish species above the thermocline. The trawl catches accompanying hydroacoustical studies have contained exclusively vendace and stickleback. Investigation of TS have shown two-pick distributions, one corresponding to the size of vendace and one smaller. The two fish species were separated by thresholding. The maps of fish spatial distributions confirmed that vendace was present only in the deepest part of the lake, which is typical for this part of a year, while the other fish were distributed over the whole lake area. The worsening of environmental conditions in Lake Pluszne (increase of eutrophication) leads to declining vendace population. INTRODUCTION Over the past few decades, hydroacoustics has become increasingly important to the assessment of fish populations [1]. Fish stock assessment in inland waters is necessary for both: fisheries management and ecological environmental assessments, as a result of EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) requirements [2]. A wide range of sampling techniques have been developed for the assessment of fish populations in lakes and reservoirs including trawling, gill nets, electrofishing, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Spatial and Temporal Variability of Upwelling in the Southern
    University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2012 On the spatial and temporal variability of upwelling in the southern Caribbean Sea and its influence on the ecology of phytoplankton and of the Spanish sardine (Sardinella aurita) Digna Tibisay Rueda-Roa University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons, Oceanography Commons, Other Earth Sciences Commons, and the Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons Scholar Commons Citation Rueda-Roa, Digna Tibisay, "On the spatial and temporal variability of upwelling in the southern Caribbean Sea and its influence on the ecology of phytoplankton and of the Spanish sardine (Sardinella aurita)" (2012). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/4217 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. On the spatial and temporal variability of upwelling in the southern Caribbean Sea and its influence on the ecology of phytoplankton and of the Spanish sardine (Sardinella aurita) by Digna T. Rueda-Roa A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy College of Marine Science University of South Florida Major Professor: Frank E. Muller-Karger, Ph.D. Mark Luther, Ph.D. Ernst Peebles, Ph.D. David Hollander, Ph.D. Eduardo Klein, Ph.D. Jeremy Mendoza, Ph.D.
    [Show full text]
  • Velocity Mapping in the Lower Congo River: a First Look at the Unique Bathymetry and Hydrodynamics of Bulu Reach, West Central Africa
    Velocity Mapping in the Lower Congo River: A First Look at the Unique Bathymetry and Hydrodynamics of Bulu Reach, West Central Africa P.R. Jackson U.S. Geological Survey, Illinois Water Science Center, Urbana, IL, USA K.A. Oberg U.S. Geological Survey, Office of Surface Water, Urbana, IL, USA N. Gardiner American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA J. Shelton U.S. Geological Survey, South Carolina Water Science Center, Columbia, SC, USA ABSTRACT: The lower Congo River is one of the deepest, most powerful, and most biologically diverse stretches of river on Earth. The river’s 270 m decent from Malebo Pool though the gorges of the Crystal Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean (498 km downstream) is riddled with rapids, cataracts, and deep pools. Much of the lower Congo is a mystery from a hydraulics perspective. However, this stretch of the river is a hotbed for biologists who are documenting evolution in action within the diverse, but isolated, fish popula- tions. Biologists theorize that isolation of fish populations within the lower Congo is due to barriers pre- sented by flow structure and bathymetry. To investigate this theory, scientists from the U.S. Geological Sur- vey and American Museum of Natural History teamed up with an expedition crew from National Geographic in 2008 to map flow velocity and bathymetry within target reaches in the lower Congo River using acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs) and echo sounders. Simultaneous biological and water quality sampling was also completed. This paper presents some preliminary results from this expedition, specifically with re- gard to the velocity structure and bathymetry.
    [Show full text]
  • Implementation of Hydroacoustic for a Rapid Assessment of Fish Spatial
    Acta Limnologica Brasiliensia, 2013, vol. 25, no. 1, p. 91-98 http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S2179-975X2013000100010 Implementation of hydroacoustic for a rapid assessment of fish spatial distribution at a Brazilian Lake - Lagoa Santa, MG Aplicação do método hidroacústico na avaliação rápida da distribuição espacial de peixes em um Lago Brasileiro – Lagoa Santa, Minas Gerais José Fernandes Bezerra-Neto1, Ludmila Silva Brighenti 2 and Ricardo Motta Pinto-Coelho3 1Laboratório de Ecologia e Conservação, Departamento de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – UFMG, CEP 31270-901, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] 2Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia, Conservação e Manejo da Vida Silvestre, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – UFMG, CEP 31270-901, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] 3Laboratório de Gestão Ambiental de Reservatórios Tropicais, Departamento de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais – UFMG, CP 486, CEP 31270-901, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] Abstract: Aim: To study the distribution, structure, size and density of fish in the karst lake: Lagoa Central (Lagoa Santa, MG - surface area: 1.7 km2; mean depth: 4.0 m; and maximum depth: 7.3 m). Methods: The hydroacoustic method with vertical beaming was applied, using the echosounder Biosonics DT-X with a split-beam transducer of 200 kHz. The analysis of the acoustic data was performed with the software Visual Analyzer (Biosonics Inc.). Thematic maps of density echoes associated with fish, estimated by the technique of echo-integration, were made using the kriging interpolation.
    [Show full text]
  • A Parametric Analysis and Sensitivity Study of the Acoustic Propagation for Renewable Energy
    OCS Study BOEM 2020-011 A Parametric Analysis and Sensitivity Study of the Acoustic Propagation for Renewable Energy US Department of the Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Office of Renewable Energy Programs OCS Study BOEM 2020-011 A Parametric Analysis and Sensitivity Study of the Acoustic Propagation for Renewable Energy Sources 10 February 2020 Authors: Kevin D. Heaney, Michael A. Ainslie, Michele B. Halvorsen, Kerri D. Seger, Roel A.J. Müller, Marten J.J. Nijhof, Tristan Lippert Prepared under BOEM Award M17PD00003 Submitted by: CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. 8502 SW Kansas Avenue Stuart, Florida 34997 Telephone: 772-219-3000 US Department of the Interior Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Office of Renewable Energy Programs DISCLAIMER Study concept, oversight, and funding were provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), Environmental Studies Program, Washington, D.C., under Contract Number M15PC00011. This report has been technically reviewed by BOEM, and it has been approved for publication. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the U.S. Government, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use. REPORT AVAILABILITY To download a PDF file of this report, go to the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Data and Information Systems webpage (http://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Studies- EnvData/), click on the link for the Environmental Studies Program Information System (ESPIS), and search on 2020-011. The report is also available at the National Technical Reports Library at https://ntrl.ntis.gov/NTRL/.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effects of Fall Coldfront Passages on the Nekton Community in a Tidal Creek in Port Fourchon, LA, As Monitored by Hydroacoustics David J
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2002 The effects of fall coldfront passages on the nekton community in a tidal creek in Port Fourchon, LA, as monitored by hydroacoustics David J. Harmon Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology Commons Recommended Citation Harmon, David J., "The effects of fall coldfront passages on the nekton community in a tidal creek in Port Fourchon, LA, as monitored by hydroacoustics" (2002). LSU Master's Theses. 2890. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/2890 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE EFFECTS OF FALL COLDFRONT PASSAGES ON THE NEKTON COMMUNITY IN A TIDAL CREEK IN PORT FOURCHON, LA, AS MONITORED BY HYDROACOUSTICS A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in The Department of Oceanography and Coastal Studies by David J. Harmon B.S., University of South Carolina, 1999 August, 2002 Acknowledgements I wish to thank Dr. Charles Wilson for his endless help and guidance as my major professor, Drs. Conrad Lamon and Richard Shaw for being excellent committee members. Mark Miller for helping design and implement the new deployment system, Wilton Delaune for field assistance, Jim Dawson and John Hedgepeth for hydroacoustic expertise and all the faculty, graduates students and friends who helped along the way.
    [Show full text]
  • Effects of Sound on Fish
    Effects of Sound on Fish by Mardi C. Hastings,1 Ph.D. & Arthur N. Popper,1 Ph.D. Subconsultants to Jones & Stokes Under California Department of Transportation Contract No. 43A0139, Task Order 1 Funding Provided by the California Department of Transportation Prime Contractor: Jones & Stokes 2600 V Street Sacramento, CA 95818 January 28, 2005 August 23, 2005 (Revised Appendix B) 1 Any opinions or positions expressed in this report are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of their employers, the State of California, the State of Maryland, or the United States Government 1 Table of Contents Summary____________________________________________________________________ 4 A. Effects of Pile-Driving Sound on Fish____________________________________________ 4 B. Areas of Uncertainty and Studies Needed ________________________________________ 5 Table 1: Outline of studies to investigate pile driving and its effects on fishes._______________________6 C. Terminology ________________________________________________________________ 7 I. Introduction _______________________________________________________________ 8 II. Characterization of Pile Driving Sound and Its Effect on Fishes ___________________ 10 A. Overview of Pile Driving Sound _______________________________________________ 10 B. Comparison of Pile Driving Sound Waveforms with an Ideal Impulse Wave __________ 12 C. Overview of Results from Recent Pile Driving Studies_____________________________ 13 1. Caltrans (2001)______________________________________________________________________13
    [Show full text]
  • Underwater Acoustics and Its Applications: a Historical Review
    Proceedings of the 2nd EAA International Symposium on Hydroacoustics 24-27 May 1999, Gdańsk-Jurata POLAND Underwater Acoustics and its Applications. A Historical Review. Leif Bjerna, Irina Bjerne Department of Industrial Acoustics, Technical University of Denmark, Building 425, DK-2800 Lyngby, Denmark. l. Introduction 2. Studies of underwater acoustics before World War! Underwater acoustics is one of the fastest grow- ing fields of research in acoustics. The number of The Greek philosopher,. Aristotle (384 - 322 publications per year in underwater acoustics is still B.C.) may have been one of the first to note that increasing. The relationship to other fields of im- sound could be heard in water as well as in air. In portance for science and technology like oceanogra- 1490 the Italian, Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) phy, seismology and fishery is becoming more close. wrote in his notebook: "if you cause your ship to Every year billions of dollars are spent on the use of stop, and place the head of a long tube in the water underwater acoustics by the mineral industry (oil and place the other extremity to your ear, you will and solid mineral exploration in the sea), by the food hear ships at great distances". Of course, the back- industry (fishing), by the transportation and recrea- ground noise of lakes and seas was much lower in tion industries (navigation and safety devices) and his days than now, when all kinds of ships pollute by the worlds navies (undersea warfare). A great the seas with noise. About one hundred years later, number of industrial companies are developing and Francis Bacon in Narural History supported the manufacturing instrurnents and devices for under- idea, that water is the principal medium by which water acoustics, including for instance instruments sounds originating therein reach a human observer for inspection and mapping of the seabed, for un- standing nearby.
    [Show full text]
  • Ocean Acoustic Tomography
    Radiating Wideband Sonar Pulses with Resonant Sandwich Transducers by Designing the Driving Voltage Waveform P. Cobo, C. Ranz, and M. Siguero Instituto de Acústica, CSIC. Serrano 144. 28006 Madrid. SPAIN A technique to radiate short length, high resolution, pulses with conventional piezoelectric transducers is described. It consists on designing the driving voltage waveform so that the radiated pulse has a zero-phase cosine-magnitude spectrum compatible with the natural frequency response of the transducer. According to Berkhout [1], zero-phase cosine-magnitude pulses have the minimum length, maximum resolution, within a prescribed frequency band. When applied to a 9 kHz sandwich transducer, this technique decreases the pulse length from 1 ms to 0.13 ms, increases the bandwidth from 1.4 kHz to 11.25 kHz, and lowers the Q factor from 6.2 to 1.23, at the cost of 33% of amplitude loss. INTRODUCTION H *( f ) X e ( f ) Ye ( f ) , (2) H( f ) 2 p 2 An underwater transducer is driven usually by a tone-burst. However, Winter et al. [2] and Mazzola 2 and Raff [3] showed that is possible to use Fourier where p is a regularisation constant, and * denotes techniques to find the electrical driving function so conjugate complex. Therefore, the electrical function that the transducer radiates a prescribed acoustic which must be synthesized is waveform. Holly et al. [4] reported that a transducer driven with a shaped function responded in two '$ '4 ]1 ]1 H *( f ) octaves, with an amplitude loss of 15 dB. xe (t) X e ( f ) %Ye ( f ) 5 (3) 2 2 Cobo [5] applied this technique to synthesize zero- &' H( f ) p 6' phase cosine-magnitude, gaussian, and bionic pulses, with a conventional sandwich transducer.
    [Show full text]
  • Seabird Responses to Variability in Coastal Upwelling at Multiple Time Scales J
    PRBO Conservation Science Seabird responses to variability in coastal upwelling at multiple time scales J. Jahncke, J.E. Roth, M.L. Elliott, R.W Bradley, B.L. Saenz, P. Warzybok, C.L. Abraham, N.J. Karnovsky PRBO Conservation Science Outline • Brief overview • Long time scales - Ocean conditions - Seabird responses • Short time scales - Upwelling forcing - Ecosystem responses Photo: Jan Roletto PRBO Conservation Science Upwelling in the California Current has increased • Bakun’s (1990) Increase upwelling • Snyder et al. (2003) predictions (SF – North) Further increases in upwelling intensity Delay in upwelling PRBO Conservation Science Long term changes in upwelling (Bakun revisited) 300 • Significant increase trend 250 in upwelling from 1946 to 200 150 2007 100 r2 = 0.13 Upwelling Index 50 p = 0.004 0 1946 1956 1966 1976 1986 1996 2006 Year 300 250 • Slight decrease in 200 upwelling from 1972 to 150 100 r2 = 0.03 2007 Upwelling Index 50 p = 0.35 0 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 Year Roth et al. (in prep) PRBO Conservation Science Stable temperature and earlier spring transitions 14 • Slight increase in sea 13 surface temperature 12 SST 11 from 1972 to 2007 r2 = 0.03 10 p = 0.34 9 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 Year 140 • Significant change 120 100 towards earlier spring 80 60 r2 = 0.14 transitions from 1972 to Date Julian 40 20 p = 0.02 2007 0 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 Year Roth et al. (in prep) PRBO Conservation Science Long time scales Are seabirds responding to changes in ocean conditions? Modeled median egg-laying dates and breeding success as a function of upwelling, temperature and spring transition date.
    [Show full text]
  • Fine-Scale Vertical Structure of Sound Scattering Layers Over an East
    Ocean Sci. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/os-2019-23-AC1, 2019 © Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Interactive comment on “Fine-scale vertical structure of sound scattering layers over an east border upwelling system and its relationship to pelagic habitat characteristics” by Ndague Diogoul et al. Ndague Diogoul et al. [email protected] Received and published: 10 August 2019 We would like to thank the referee for the detailed report, his comments were very useful for improving our manuscript. Below we provide the answers to all comments. The authors present an interesting data set on coastal hydroacoustics in an African upwelling area. However, despite CTD measurements, additional measurements have not been undertaken. Thus no information on zooplankton or fish composition is made, and additional frequencies to 38kHz that could be used for a relative frequency re- C1 sponse analysis to indicate the differential contributions of the main hydroacoustic com- partments fluid-like species, fishes with swim-bladder etc. have not be sampled. One such paper is mentioned in the ref list (Behagle et al 2017). Answer : This is absolutely right. In this study, we used the acoustic monofrequency approach (using 38 kHz, one of the most current frequencies used in fisheries surveys) to study the spatio-temporal SSLs structuration in relation to the environment at generic level, i.e., without species identification. One limitation was the lack of taxonomic in- formation about the species composition of SSLs but that will case of most part of the acoustic sea surveys available worldwide.
    [Show full text]
  • FISH in a TIDALLY DYNAMIC REGION in MAINE: HYDROACOUSTIC ASSESSMENTS in RELATION to TIDAL POWER DEVELOPMENT by Haley A. Viehman
    FISH IN A TIDALLY DYNAMIC REGION IN MAINE: HYDROACOUSTIC ASSESSMENTS IN RELATION TO TIDAL POWER DEVELOPMENT By Haley A. Viehman B.S. Cornell University, 2009 A THESIS Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science (in Marine Bioresources) The University of Maine May, 2012 Advisory Committee: Gayle Zydlewski, Assistant Professor of Marine Science, Advisor Michael Peterson, Professor of Mechanical Engineering James McCleave, Professor Emeritus of Marine Science LIBRARY RIGHTS STATEMENT In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Maine, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for “fair use” copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Librarian. It is understood that any copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Signature: Date: FISH IN A TIDALLY DYNAMIC REGION IN MAINE: HYDROACOUSTIC ASSESSMENTS IN RELATION TO TIDAL POWER DEVELOPMENT By Haley A. Viehman Thesis Advisor: Dr. Gayle Zydlewski An Abstract of the Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science (in Marine Bioresources) May, 2012 Fish ecology in regions of extreme tidal flows is poorly understood, but as these areas link on- and off-shore habitats, they are important to many marine and diadromous fish species. Strong tidal currents are also being targeted for energy extraction, but the effects of tidal energy devices on fish are unknown. The probability of fish encountering a tidal energy turbine is highly dependent on the vertical distribution of fish at the project site.
    [Show full text]