acoustics can be use to map the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of that behavior. For example, if we know the spawning sound of a particular fish, then we can use passive acoustics to map the distribution of spawning sites. In fisheries applications, that makes passive acoustics a very powerful tool for identification of essential fish habitat (EFH) which is mandated for all managed species by the United States Congress as part of the 1996 reauthorization of the MagnusonStevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. However, the potential of passive acoustics as a tool for exploration and discovery is equally important. In the open ocean, finding fish is often the biggest challenge to their study. After all, you can't observe and study something that you can't find! Therefore, tools that allow investigators to determine the location of both known and unknown sounds can be a powerful tool in many habitats like the deep sea. It
seems that passive acoustics has opened up a whole new frontier in marine science, and the frontier is right at our doorstep. It is hard to image how we have so badly overlooked the importance of the underwater soundscape to marine life, especially to fishes and invertebrates. But this is rapidly changing as more and more scientists realize the potential of the field. In the last decade pioneering studies have used passive acoustics to map spawning habitats of important estuarine fishes, record and study spawning behavior of fishes in a variety of settings, study the impact of man-made noise on marine animals, and to locate and track marine mammals and fishes. With my colleagues Cliff Goudey at the Center for Fisheries Research Engineering and Francis Juanes at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we have recently made the first field recordings of cod and haddock in North American waters and have begun to study the natural daily pattern of spawning in haddock. We have doc-
Figure 1. Examples of typical field conditions for passive acoustic applications in ecology. www.seadiscovery.com Marine Technology Reporter 41
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