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Painting a Soundscape

MIT-WHOI graduate student Max Kaplan (right) and biologist T. Aran Mooney retrieve DMONs, passive acoustic recording tools, off the coast of the US Virgin Islands, using lift bags. The team, including guest investigator Samantha Zacarias, deployed the instruments for 24-hour periods to examine spatial variability within a reef “soundscape,” a combination of biological and non-biological sounds produced by everything from fish to waves. Their work complements a 4-month study examining long-term variations in soundscape at three reefs with varying coral cover. The short-term project was completed in April 2013, while the long-term instruments will be recovered in August.(Photo by Samantha Zacarias, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)