| Summary: | The SIMFAMI (Species Identification Methods From Acoustic Multifrequency Information) project was a three year research project funded by the European Commission. The goal of the project was to enable the identification of fish species using scientific echosounders operating at frequencies typical of those used in fisheries research (e.g., 18, 38, 120 and 200 kHz). This contribution describes the SIMFAMI project and provides an overview of the major results. Notable outcomes include: guidelines for the collection of multifrequency data; an online database and summary document containing the relevant information for most of the pelagic commercial finfish species of the north east Atlantic; a database of echotrace descriptors for the fish species considered; algorithms to perform inversions using most of the plankton model types currently available; simple algorithms to remove plankton and (resonant) bubbles from echograms; algorithms to identify fish without swimbladders (such as Atlantic mackerel); and algorithms to identify schooling physostomes (such as herring) in waters deeper than about 80 m. The algorithms are supported by empirical or theoretical scattering models of the various groups. It is clear, at this stage, that these echosounder frequencies do not always provide sufficient information to resolve individual species, but in many circumstances, groups with similar physiology can be identified to some degree and more information is available than had hitherto thought possible
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