Aquatic Mammals 2013, 39(1), 23-53, DOI 10.1578/AM.39.1.2013.23 A Review and Inventory of Fixed Autonomous Recorders for Passive Acoustic Monitoring of Marine Mammals Renata S. Sousa-Lima,1, 2, 5 Thomas F. Norris,3 Julie N. Oswald,3, 4 and Deborah P. Fernandes5 1Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA E-mail:
[email protected] 2Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Conservação e Manejo de Vida Silvestre, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Avenida Antônio Carlos 6627, Belo Horizonte, MG 31270, Brasil 3Bio-Waves, Inc., 144 W. D Street, Suite #205, Encinitas, CA 92024, USA 4Oceanwide Science Institute, PO Box 61692, Honolulu, HI 96839, USA 5Laboratório de Bioacústica e Programa de Pós Graduação em Psicobiologia, Departamento de Fisiologia, Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Caixa Postal 1511, Campus Universitário, Natal, RN 59078-970, Brasil Abstract sounds produced by marine mammals to more effectively study them. Fixed autonomous acoustic recording devices In 1880, Pierre and Jacques Curie (1880a, (autonomous recorders [ARs]) are defined as 1880b) discovered that when mechanical pressure any electronic recording system that acquires was exerted on a quartz crystal, an electric poten- and stores acoustic data internally (i.e., without a tial is produced. This finding enabled the devel- cable or radio link to transmit data to a receiving opment of the first device capable of listening to station), is deployed semi-permanently underwa- sounds underwater—passive acoustic monitoring ter (via a mooring, buoy, or attached to the sea (PAM), which was utilized during World War I.