Playing sounds of healthy coral on reefs makes fish return (2019)

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-12-03/great-barrier-reef-coral-fish-acoustics/11760016

by thinkingemote • 3 years ago

89 43 3 years ago

abc.net.au

causality0• 3 years ago

So would the expected outcome of this be an instantly-healthy reef, or are we tricking a bunch of fish into going somewhere that can't support them?

anonymouskimmer• 3 years ago

They say that instantly healthy isn't expected, but I expect that this could help some reefs that are recovering, especially since:

However, he said that his previous research published in the journal PLOS ONE found that despite not having ears, coral larvae also seemed to use sound to find and settle on reefs.

...

"[But] there's the opportunity that if you play healthy reef sounds you may bring back a much richer reef community than just fish."

klyrs• 3 years ago

Perhaps it's more like the stores that play classical music because teens won't think it's cool to hang out there

gumby• 3 years ago

Depends on the teens.

evolve2k• 3 years ago

I think the conception is that work can be done to restore the reef and then this can be utilised to promote the newly revived reef to attract fish etc back.

chongli• 3 years ago

There’s a lot of fish that feed on corals. I would worry that inviting the fish back before the reefs are well established could cause the corals to get eaten and wiped out.

cratermoon• 3 years ago

Sirens call

dec0dedab0de• 3 years ago

Last year I volunteered for a few hours at a coral farm operated by a non profit that restores reefs. I didn't even know it was possible to grow coral before that.

I would assume technology like this would be useful after newly planted coral was established, or maybe at an artificial reef like a sunken ship.

joshxyz• 3 years ago

what we can plant corals?

holy shit i never knew this

optimalsolver• 3 years ago

Bait-and-switch. No pun intended.

Terr_• 3 years ago

"Switch-on Bait" too.

Makes me think of using lights to attract certain fish... although I imagine the susceptible are getting selected-against pretty heavily when it comes to evolutionary pressures by now.

kimburgess2• 3 years ago

Catfishing.

moffkalast2• 3 years ago

Fish, the easiest living organism to bait.

zx8080• 3 years ago

Does the fish then die from starvation?

seriousman123• 3 years ago

In the ethereal melody of a once thriving reef, we perceive a poignant echo of profound loss, reminiscent of hearing the tender voice of a dearly departed beloved. Drawn inexorably towards it, like a moth entranced by the siren call of a flame, we seek the comforting symphony of life that once flourished. Yet, akin to the cruel illusion of pursuing the ghostly whispers of our past, we know the vibrant chorus we seek has danced away into oblivion. Akin to the article's title, the pain of this elusive quest is a melancholic symphony, a mournful reminder of the vibrant life that once was, and the silent void that has come to be.

ravetcofx• 3 years ago

I don't want accuse by any means was it's as it's beautifully written, but did you write this or GPT4?

satvikpendem• 3 years ago

GPT 4 does not write nearly this well, in my experience.

lionkor• 3 years ago

Why do some people think that writing well hasn't existed before LLMs? Relax and lay off the news for a bit, maybe

sethammons• 3 years ago

I read this in the voice of David Attenborough. Sounds like him.

treeman79• 3 years ago

Calling fish with a phone is also a good way to bring in the fish.

https://oceansciencehistory.com/2013/10/12/phoning-fish-the-...

jsjohnst2• 3 years ago

What’s even more interesting is the connection between ocean acidification and underwater sound. There’s preliminary research suggesting that the acidity reduces the dampening and the ocean is getting louder, which interferes with fish’s ability to hear each other.

Here’s one link with more details: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/290413#:~:...

DigiDigiorno2• 3 years ago

"[Coral larvae] don't have ears but somehow they're attracted to healthy reef sounds," he said.

"Maybe they can sense the vibrations with their cilia [tiny hair-like appendages], but we don't know.".

This sounds like more of a philosophical question, but is there a difference between hearing and sensing vibrations? Is there a certain level of signal processing required for hearing? Like, I can sense vibrations with my fingers, but I wouldn't call that hearing.

deepnet• 3 years ago

Here is a dry land analogue. [1] Tree roots grow towards the sound of water.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-maga...

bobthepanda• 3 years ago

There’s something like the human audible spectrum similar to the human visible light spectrum.

We know for a fact that animals see and hear differently than we do by observing parts of the spectrum that humans cannot.

kimburgess2• 3 years ago

It's physiological rather than philosophical. Auditory stimuli are sensed through your ear and tactile through the somatosensory system (in humans). There's some crossover in the frequencies both can detect.

There's also some potential crossover in how these may be perceived. For example, experiments which show you may in fact be able to 'hear' through your fingers; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06855-8.

pluijzer• 3 years ago

Interesting, Maybe it has to do with the extra analyses that the brain performs on hearing. What I hear is not the raw vibration but a amonst other things a fourier transform of it. i hear a distinct pitch. The brain uses the harmonic overtones of sounds to group them together. When I feel vibrations with my finger I just feel slower or faster vibrations.

By the way, sometimes I hear a sound so low that I am confused whether I hear or feel it.

jsjohnst2• 3 years ago

Like, I can sense vibrations with my fingers, but I wouldn't call that hearing.

Touch is a powerful sensory input and some folks who suffer from deafblindness can truly “hear” spoken words through touch.

DigiDigiorno2• 3 years ago

I tried to do that once. I almost could make out what they were saying, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.*

*ᴵ ᵃᵖᵒˡᵒᵍᶦᶻᵉ ᶦⁿ ᵃᵈᵛᵃⁿᶜᵉᵈ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᶦˢ ˢᵗᵘᵖᶦᵈ ʲᵒᵏᵉ

westurner2• 3 years ago

Coral reef restoration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef_restoration

"Coral restoration – A systematic review of current methods, successes, failures and future directions" (2020) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... ; citations of https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=5,47&sciodt=...

Sunscreen > Environmental effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen#Environmental_effect... :

Additionally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has indicated that coral decline is associated with effects from climate change (warming oceans, rising water levels, acidification), overfishing, and pollution from agriculture, wastewater, and urban run-off.[155]

Oxybenzone > Environmental effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxybenzone#Environmental_effec... :

[Oxybenzone-containing sunscreen is now banned] in many areas [45] such as Palau, [46] Hawaii, [5] nature reserves in Mexico, Bonaire, the Marshall Islands, the United States Virgin Islands, Thailand's marine natural parks, [47] the Northern Mariana Islands, [48] and Aruba. [49]

westurner2• 3 years ago

Thanks coral restoration volunteers!

Are there already coral restoration drones / RUVs?

Is there a SAR Synthetic Aperture Radar -like imaging capability for mapping coral health; with sensor fusion? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic-aperture_radar

Sensor fusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion

"Bacterial sensors send a jolt of electricity when triggered" https://news.rice.edu/news/2022/bacterial-sensors-send-jolt-...

re: sensor nets: https://twitter.com/westurner/status/1612605800576335874 ... ansible-OpenWRT, [DuckLink] LoRa, MEMS wave power

LoRa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LoRa

#Goal14: Life below water: https://www.globalgoals.org/goals/14-life-below-water/

#SDG14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development : https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal14

Do coral fragments have to be planted ashore or could they be ~transplanted by a drone?

at_a_remove• 3 years ago

"What do you do for a living?" "Basically, I make machines that lie to fish."

I know there's a very good reason for all of it but sometimes I try to imagine explaining our jobs to people of several centuries prior. It's almost impossible to do without having about six whys in the list and it occurs to me that civilization is an ever-increasing layers of why atop one another.

Proven• 3 years ago

Wait, I thought Aussie coral reefs died due to global warming?

amriksohata• 3 years ago

We mess up the environment with artificial stuff, so woo lets put up some more artificial stuff to fix it, oh wait what impact will that have?

leaving• 3 years ago

Now we have a viable model that will allow us to study disappointment in fish.

Playing sounds of healthy coral on reefs makes fish return (2019)

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