Use of Ecoacoustics to Characterize the Marine Acoustic Environment off the North Atlantic French Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon Archipelago

• Published in: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
• Main Authors: Nguyen Hong Duc, Paul, Cazau, Dorian, White, Paul, Gérard, Odile, Detcheverry, Joël, Urtizberea, Frank, Adam, Olivier
• Other Authors: Institut Jean Le Rond d'Alembert (DALEMBERT), Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Equipe Observations Signal & Environnement (Lab-STICC_OSE), Laboratoire des sciences et techniques de l'information, de la communication et de la connaissance (Lab-STICC), Institut Mines-Télécom Paris (IMT)-IMT Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire (IMT Atlantique), Institut Mines-Télécom Paris (IMT)-École Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Brest (ENIB)-École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées Bretagne (ENSTA Bretagne)-Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Bretagne Loire (UBL)-Institut Mines-Télécom Paris (IMT)-IMT Atlantique Bretagne-Pays de la Loire (IMT Atlantique), Institut Mines-Télécom Paris (IMT)-École Nationale d'Ingénieurs de Brest (ENIB)-École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées Bretagne (ENSTA Bretagne)-Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Bretagne Loire (UBL), École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées Bretagne (ENSTA Bretagne), University of Southampton, DGA Techniques Navales, Direction générale de l'Armement (DGA), SPM Frag’îles
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: underwater; acoustic environment; ecoacoustics; noise levels; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [SDU.STU.OC]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Oceanography; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-03167382; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-03167382/document; https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-03167382/file/jmse-09-00177-v2.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9020177

International audience Visual observations of the marine biodiversity can be difficult in specific areas for different reasons, including weather conditions or a lack of observers. In such conditions, passive acoustics represents a potential alternative approach. The objective of this work is to demonstrate how information about marine biodiversity can be obtained via detailed analysis of the underwater acoustic environment. This paper presents the first analysis of the Saint-Pierre-and-Miquelon (SPM) archipelago underwater acoustic environment. In order to have a better knowledge about the marine biodiversity of SPM, acoustic recordings were sampled at different time periods to highlight seasonal variations over several years. To extract information from these acoustic recordings, standard soundscape and ecoacoustic analysis workflow was used to compute acoustic metrics such as power spectral density, third-octave levels, acoustic complexity index, and sound pressure levels. The SPM marine acoustic environment can be divided into three main sound source classes: biophony, anthrophony, and geophony. Several cetacean species were encountered in the audio recordings including sperm whales (which were detected by visual observations and strandings of 3 males in 2014), humpback, and blue whales.