\n<\/p>\n
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American\u2019s Science Quickly, I\u2019m Rachel Feltman. In case you missed it we\u2019re spending this week revisiting some of our favorite episodes from the past year.<\/p>\n
Today we\u2019re diving into the subject of coral reefs. Even if you\u2019re not an avid snorkeler or diver, chances are that movies and childhood trips to the aquarium have given you some sense of how lively these ecosystems can be. Maybe you\u2019ve even seen photos of what happens to a reef when it loses that vitality\u2014something that\u2019s becoming increasingly common due to bleaching events and other ecological disasters. But do you know what a sick reef sounds like?<\/p>\n
According to our guest for this episode, which originally aired in August 2024, a reef at its peak sounds something like this.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n
[CLIP: Reef sounds]<\/p>\n
But when a reef falls on hard times, things can get pretty quiet.<\/p>\n
[CLIP: Reef sounds]<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s our chat with conservation bioacoustics researcher Isla Keesje Davidson, who studies the changing soundscape of the sea.<\/p>\n
So, Dr. Davidson, why is it important that we listen to the sound of a coral reef?<\/p>\n
Isla Keesje Davidson: It\u2019s quite an exciting space, when you think about how far our understanding and learning has come for the ocean in general but then coral reefs in particular. If you think about how Jacques Cousteau described the oceans as The Silent World in the sort of 1950s, and we\u2019re starting to learn more and more about how actually they\u2019re hardly silent\u2014you know, they\u2019re incredibly acoustically diverse\u2014and coral reefs are a particularly loud and diverse set of sounds that you can hear, but also they\u2019re really interesting and important ecosystems to understand.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t cover a whole lot of the planet\u2019s surface, about 0.1 percent, but a quarter of all marine species that we know depend on coral reefs at some stage in their life, you know, so this is a real hustle and bustle of life that\u2019s happening there. And it\u2019s incredibly acoustically diverse.<\/p>\n
And so you can think of all these different pops and chirps and grunts and snaps that happen there. And then you might think, \u201cOkay, so what, what\u2019s the interest in that?\u201d Well, we know that, for example, new generations of larval fish, which are as tiny as a little candy, they are up in the open ocean, and they need to hear the sound of the healthy reef to actually find it\u2014to settle, to start their life on the reef.<\/p>\n
And recently research has also shown that the coral actually use sound to find suitable spots for themselves to settle. So if you think about: coral reefs can be thousands and thousands and thousands of years old, and one coral can be\u2014you know, can grow to 5,000 years old itself, and they grow on the shoulders of their ancestors, and they need to hear that space to actually find it, to be able to continue those generations of growth. And that\u2019s part of what makes these ecosystems so important for the oceans but also for the entire planet.<\/p>\n
Feltman: I didn\u2019t realize that hearing was important for coral. I think that\u2019s probably surprising to a lot of our listeners. Could you say more about that?<\/p>\n
Davidson: If you think about how us as a species, as an animal, we are using a diversity of our signals to communicate, to interact with each other and to sort of navigate our world. And underwater they\u2019re doing it\u2014the exact same thing; they just have a, a different set of signals and a different use of their different sensory systems to do that.<\/p>\n
And coral reefs are\u2014if you think about it, you\u2019ve got that skeleton of that structure that gives all these different habitats for the diversity of life that lives there. So the corals themselves are using a diversity of those signals to recognize, \u201cOkay, this is a good spot. This will be safe,\u201d or, \u201cI can recognize that there are other corals here, so this is probably a good place to start trying to live.\u201d And they\u2019ll adjust their sort of movement behavior, responding to what they hear.<\/p>\n
And sound is a really\u2014quite a good signal underwater. It travels five times faster and therefore much further underwater than it does in air. So if you think about the complexity of a coral reef space, if you\u2019re trying to keep sight of, maybe, a fish that\u2019s important to you\u2014it\u2019s part of your shoal, or it\u2019s your mate\u2014and you suddenly can\u2019t see them anymore, that could be pretty dangerous for the life of, for example, a little fish. But if you can reliably hear each other \u2019cause that travels so much further, then you\u2019ve got a really reliable signal to keep you able to survive and thrive in that environment.<\/p>\n
Feltman: That\u2019s so interesting. I feel like most folks, what they know about sound in the water kind of begins and ends with them being told as a kid why they shouldn\u2019t tap on an aquarium window [laughs]. But how did you get interested in this field of research?<\/p>\n
Davidson: So I started with a fascination of: How are these different species that occupy these underwater worlds, how are they interacting with each other? And the behaviors that they have to do and that they choose to do in their world, in their lives, what does that mean, and how do we learn from those different interactions and understand what that can mean for the biodiversity in a space? Because we understand that biodiversity is really important. You know, it\u2019s more than just what\u2019s there and what\u2019s not there; it\u2019s how these different individuals, these different species are interacting with each other and what that means for their sort of capacity to continue to live there.<\/p>\n
As I was sort of curious about that and learning more about animal behavior and the impacts of how they use their different senses to communicate with one another, and I focused in on coral reefs. And from that I kept sort of learning more about: well, I can see that they\u2019re interacting together, but I can also hear these different, for example, these tiny, little coral reef fish that are really chirping to each other, making these whooping sounds and, you know, synchronizing some of their acoustic sounds that they make with these little movements.<\/p>\n
And so you very quickly realize that this is a place where there is\u2014not only are they choosing and tailoring how they behave and how they move, they\u2019re really waiting for an opportunity to be heard as well. And just like you have in forests that we might have around us, you have a dawn chorus when the sun rises, you have a dawn chorus that happens in coral reefs as well. So they\u2019re all coming out of their little safe spots and making themselves heard. And so you can\u2019t kind of ignore that; they\u2019re really using their voices. So it became a point of trying to understand how they use the diversity of these different signals.<\/p>\n
And especially, these are changing environments\u2014they\u2019re really impacted\u2014and so what does this mean when you have these interactions between these species and what that means for the ecosystem and its survival in the long term.<\/p>\n
Feltman: And what\u2019s your research focused on right now?<\/p>\n
Davidson: Yeah, so at the moment, I\u2019m working on\u2014we call it the WOPAM project. So it stands for the [World] Oceans Passive Acoustic Monitoring Project, which is a bit of a mouthful, but WOPAM is quite a fun way to shorten it down [laughs].<\/p>\n
But what that means is we\u2019ve got this big collaborative effort where, across the whole world, we\u2014we, as bioacousticians, so people who focus on the sounds of biological life come together on World Oceans Day, and we listen to the sounds of the sea.<\/p>\n
This one day where we\u2019re really taken into this window of: What do we hear, and how do we connect with those sounds and what we are actually discovering? So it\u2019s an incredible collaborative effort. This year we had [more than] 180 different bioacousticians listening in in [more than] 400 different parts of the world.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Very cool. And what\u2019s the benefit of, of getting everybody all listening on the same day\u2014beyond, obviously, increasing awareness?<\/p>\n
Davidson: I would say, for the project, we can describe it as maybe four different fins to the creature of itself. So one of them is, when you have this bioacoustic collaboration across this huge geographical scale, we\u2019re not listening in to one place for a very long period of time, which really gives you that depth of expertise in that one place, but we\u2019re looking at this scale of: What are we finding and discovering together? When we look at this global perspective, what are some of the key questions that come up from that broad range of expertise of people who are used to listening in to the oceans? And then actually go and try and answer that with those recordings that we\u2019ve taken.<\/p>\n
So, just for example, some people are incredible experts at understanding the migratory routes of some really important species\u2014let\u2019s say, for example, humpback whales\u2014and so when we take this global perspective, we might be able to understand, \u201cOkay, well, how many times did we hear them, and how different were their songs in different parts of the planet?\u201d which is important when you understand that some of these groups have different dialects, basically, between each other depending on the parts of the ocean that they occupy.<\/p>\n
So you can start to tease away things like that, but also, equally, if we want to understand how much man-made, or human-made, noise is actually occupying these spaces, how much can they hear each other in the first place, we can start to look at a global perspective of that on that one day, and you can start to overlap some of these questions.<\/p>\n
But then we also really want, and have been working with various artists, to think about, \u201cOkay, well, let\u2019s explore what it means to listen to these sounds, what it means to immerse yourself. And how do we connect to what we hear, you know? Many people love engaging with listening to music and really connect emotionally to what we hear, so let\u2019s explore that a little bit with these divergent and diverse forms of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, for example, this year we worked with a fantastic musician, Alejandro Bernal from Colombia, and he took all the different sounds that he could hear from these different creatures, and he created an original score from it. And so that was his form of, his form of engagement, his form of connection with it.<\/p>\n
Then also you can take some of this as a tool\u2014so bioacoustics, you know, is one of the ways in which we can monitor these environments because as I said with WOPAM, it\u2019s a passive acoustic monitoring. Now that might sound a bit odd, but what that means actually is that we\u2019re not actively changing the space that we\u2019re listening in to. We\u2019re not causing anything to happen. We\u2019re not making anything change. We\u2019re just listening.<\/p>\n
And so you can really use that as a way to monitor these environments and look at: Okay, first of all, how are they changing? But also there are amazing ongoing conservation strategies and, and conservation efforts that are going on around the world, and how can bioacoustics maybe help to better understand and better monitor some of those fantastic efforts that are happening?<\/p>\n
Feltman: Yeah.<\/p>\n
Davidson: And just finally, also, we really want it to be something that\u2019s more participatory science, so we\u2019re really moving towards that it\u2019s not just the bioacoustics community that works together on this day and listens in, but actually if you live in Bangladesh or San Francisco or Hong Kong and you want to understand and hear what your part of the ocean sounds like, then you can do that, and it can be part of this whole active engagement into listening around the world.<\/p>\n
Feltman: And can you tell me more about how the sounds of the ocean are changing?<\/p>\n
Davidson: I think that there are many ways in which the sounds of the oceans are, are changing. All the creatures that are creating what we call the soundscape, which is very similar to a landscape\u2014it\u2019s that overall fingerprint of a place, of: What can you hear? What can you engage with? It\u2019s very unique to each place. It can really change depending on what are the creatures that form that, that orchestra of that particular spot.<\/p>\n
And coral reefs are\u2014you know, when I was doing my research, I\u2019d spend just a lot of time physically in the water, snorkeling past these sites, getting to know even the resident octopus that lives in one little spot or this little group that always wanna try and defend their nest from me \u2019cause they think I\u2019m this weird-looking, dangerous fish. You get to know these places, and alongside many of my colleagues, you can hear the differences.<\/p>\n
As the reef degrades from, let\u2019s say, repeated bleaching events or increased erratic weather that really crushes down that 3D structure that these creatures need to survive, they\u2019re not in those spaces anymore, and therefore you don\u2019t hear them anymore, and so that beautiful orchestra of sounds is just noticeably dulled. And that\u2019s a hard thing to listen to, it\u2019s a hard thing to notice because you know that those sounds are very important for those individual creatures that are there, and they form an important part of that tapestry of how that space can thrive.<\/p>\n
When a little fish is whooping, we might think, \u201cOkay, well, what\u2019s the significance of this?\u201d But if it\u2019s a particular whoop that that fish is making to another member of its shoal or its family, if they don\u2019t listen to each other, that can have life-or-death consequences, and if you start to multiply that across a whole reef space, then that has real impact on how that ecosystem is functioning.<\/p>\n
So, you know, when you\u2019re connecting to a place and spending so many hours beside it, and you\u2019re hearing those differences, you really\u2014it\u2019s hard to put into my own words what that silence means. And I think that that\u2019s where the idea of understanding this more and working towards using these sounds as a tool to try and restore and protect them is really a source of hope and resilience. And I think we need that sometimes when we\u2019re facing some of these large challenges.<\/p>\n
Feltman: Absolutely. And how can our listeners get involved in helping with research like yours?<\/p>\n
Davidson: One obvious way of getting involved is people can actually record and join in the effort. I\u2019d say that this is an exploration into immersion. What we can feel and what we can be moved by when we listen\u2014whether it\u2019s taking the recordings and exploring that or whether it\u2019s just listening to the recordings and thinking about that immersion and what it sounds like to be part of a coral reef\u2014I think that that is something that I feel, personally, quite passionately about because I\u2019m sure many people have heard coral reef ecosystems are some of the most threatened ecosystems. It\u2019s one of the first ecosystems that\u2019s going to be lost, but it could also be one of the first ones we save.<\/p>\n
For us not to let go of that hope, to use this into having some of that energy and that drive and that radical hope, in an ecological and conservation context, it has a lot of poignancy of when you feel like you\u2019re losing a lot of what you need, but having that solution-based drive and hope is really important.<\/p>\n
So I think, yeah, listening, engaging, bringing their own perspectives and feeling completely welcome and encouraged to do so\u2014there\u2019s no one way we can find the solutions for these things. And then also just celebrating it. You know, it\u2019s an incredible source of beauty as well, so it\u2019s wonderful if there are more people who really enjoy and engage with that.<\/p>\n
Feltman: That\u2019s all for today\u2019s episode. We\u2019ll be back with one more summer rerun on Friday.<\/p>\n
Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.<\/p>\n
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. See you next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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