Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem
Noise pollution is increasing globally, and as oceans are excellent conductors of sound, this is a major concern for marine species reliant on sound for key life functions. Loud, impulsive sounds from seismic surveys have been associated with impacts on many marine taxa including mammals, crustacean...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6915703 2023-05-15T15:37:10+02:00 Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem Kavanagh, A. S. Nykänen, M. Hunt, W. Richardson, N. Jessopp, M. J. 2019-12-16 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915703/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31844150 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55500-4 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915703/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31844150 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55500-4 © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55500-4 2019-12-22T01:30:48Z Noise pollution is increasing globally, and as oceans are excellent conductors of sound, this is a major concern for marine species reliant on sound for key life functions. Loud, impulsive sounds from seismic surveys have been associated with impacts on many marine taxa including mammals, crustaceans, cephalopods, and fish. However, impacts across large spatial scales or multiple species are rarely considered. We modelled over 8,000 hours of cetacean survey data across a large marine ecosystem covering > 880,000 km(2) to investigate the effect of seismic surveys on baleen and toothed whales. We found a significant effect of seismic activity across multiple species and habitats, with an 88% (82–92%) decrease in sightings of baleen whales, and a 53% (41–63%) decrease in sightings of toothed whales during active seismic surveys when compared to control surveys. Significantly fewer sightings of toothed whales also occurred during active versus inactive airgun periods of seismic surveys, although some species-specific response to noise was observed. This study provides strong evidence of multi-species impacts from seismic survey noise on cetaceans. Given the global proliferation of seismic surveys and large propagation distances of airgun noise, our results highlight the large-scale impacts that marine species are currently facing. Text baleen whales toothed whales PubMed Central (PMC) Scientific Reports 9 1 |
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Article Kavanagh, A. S. Nykänen, M. Hunt, W. Richardson, N. Jessopp, M. J. Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
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Noise pollution is increasing globally, and as oceans are excellent conductors of sound, this is a major concern for marine species reliant on sound for key life functions. Loud, impulsive sounds from seismic surveys have been associated with impacts on many marine taxa including mammals, crustaceans, cephalopods, and fish. However, impacts across large spatial scales or multiple species are rarely considered. We modelled over 8,000 hours of cetacean survey data across a large marine ecosystem covering > 880,000 km(2) to investigate the effect of seismic surveys on baleen and toothed whales. We found a significant effect of seismic activity across multiple species and habitats, with an 88% (82–92%) decrease in sightings of baleen whales, and a 53% (41–63%) decrease in sightings of toothed whales during active seismic surveys when compared to control surveys. Significantly fewer sightings of toothed whales also occurred during active versus inactive airgun periods of seismic surveys, although some species-specific response to noise was observed. This study provides strong evidence of multi-species impacts from seismic survey noise on cetaceans. Given the global proliferation of seismic surveys and large propagation distances of airgun noise, our results highlight the large-scale impacts that marine species are currently facing. |
format |
Text |
author |
Kavanagh, A. S. Nykänen, M. Hunt, W. Richardson, N. Jessopp, M. J. |
author_facet |
Kavanagh, A. S. Nykänen, M. Hunt, W. Richardson, N. Jessopp, M. J. |
author_sort |
Kavanagh, A. S. |
title |
Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
title_short |
Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
title_full |
Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
title_fullStr |
Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
title_full_unstemmed |
Seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
title_sort |
seismic surveys reduce cetacean sightings across a large marine ecosystem |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915703/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31844150 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55500-4 |
genre |
baleen whales toothed whales |
genre_facet |
baleen whales toothed whales |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915703/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31844150 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55500-4 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55500-4 |
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Scientific Reports |
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9 |
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