Abstract

Coral reefs are under stress globally from increasing ocean temperatures, overfishing, invasive species, recreational impacts, and pollution. Evaluation and monitoring of the ecological state of coral reefs provides necessary information for resource managers to better understand fish and invertebrate populations. An emerging method to monitor and measure the health of, and impacts to, coral reefs is the use of non-invasive, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) for recording reef soundscapes. A passive acoustic monitoring study was conducted in Arrecifes de Cozumel National Park to evaluate the marine acoustic environment in the park and demonstrate the potential research and management applications of passive acoustic survey approaches for monitoring Cozumel coral reefs. The study objectives were to: i) Measure the soundscape of a Cozumel coral reef site, documenting ambient sound and anthropogenic inputs from tourism activities, primarily ship traffic, and ii) Attempt to capture the first scientific recording of Splendid toadfish (Sanopus splendidus) vocalizations. Infor-mation from this research will be shared with local resource managers and can be used in future ecological surveys focused on understanding and conserving the species.

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