Supplementary material from "Characterising offshore polar ocean soundscapes using ecoacoustic intensity and diversity metrics" ...

• Main Authors: Mattmüller, Ramona Maja, Thomisch, Karolin, Hoffman, Joseph, Van Opzeeland, Ilse Catharina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: The Royal Society 2024
• Subjects: Ecology not elsewhere classified; Antarc*; Antarctic; Climate change; Fram Strait; Sea ice; Weddell Sea
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7385618.v2; https://rs.figshare.com/collections/Supplementary_material_from_Characterising_offshore_polar_ocean_soundscapes_using_ecoacoustic_intensity_and_diversity_metrics_/7385618/2

Polar offshore environments are considered the last pristine soundscapes, but accelerating climate change and increasing human activity threaten their integrity. In order to assess the acoustic state of polar oceans, there is the need to investigate their soundscape characteristics more holistically. We apply a set of 14 ecoacoustic metrics (EAMs) to identify which metrics are best suited to reflect the characteristics of disturbed and naturally intact polar offshore soundscapes. We employed two soundscape data sets: 1) of the Arctic eastern Fram Strait (FS), which is already impacted by anthropogenic noise, and 2) of the quasi-pristine Antarctic Weddell Sea (WS). Our results show that EAMs when applied in concert can be used to quantitively assess soundscape variability, enabling the appraisal of marine soundscapes over broad spatiotemporal scales. The tested set of EAMs was able to show that the eastern FS, which is virtually free from sea ice, lacks seasonal soundscape dynamics and exhibits low acoustic ...