The use of Passive Acoustic Monitoring as an auxiliary tool for monitoring Marine Protected Areas
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/Keywords:
Acoustic signals classification, Occurrence of boats, Occurrence of cetaceans, Monitoring and surveillance efforts, , Biodiversity conservationAbstract
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Brazil, like the “Refúgio de Vida Silvestre do Arquipélago de
Alcatrazes”(REVIS de Alcatrazes), contain great species diversity. For conservation purposes, investing
in local monitoring and surveillance is necessary. In this sense, Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM)
has been used to collect acoustic data from marine environments. Therefore, this study assessed
the frequency of vessels in the mentioned MPA in 2019 using PAM. Audio records collected by a
hydrophone anchored at Saco do Funil (24°05’S; 45°41’O), located around 500 m from the main island of
the archipelago, were used. Each audio file underwent a visual inspection of the spectrograms to detect
the acoustic signals. The noise related to vessels transit was identified in 10% of the analyzed files,
of which approximately 46% of the occurrences did not correspond to visits by the MPA management
office. The area was most frequented from 6 am to 2 pm. The occurrence of non-official and unauthorized
vessels was mostly concentrated from 3 am to 6 am and at 0 am. The study also underscored the
biological significance of the MPA, revealing this area potential to be regularly visited by baleen whales
in July and toothed whales throughout the analyzed months. So far, this is the only known surveillance
investigation that used the PAM in MPAs along the Brazilian coast. Improvement and expansion of
this technique use may lead using acoustics as an important auxiliary tool in monitoring MPAs on
the Brazilian coast.
References
Alves, P. M. F., Arfelli, C. A. & Tomas, A. R. G. 2009.
Caracterização da pesca de emalhe do litoral do estado
de São Paulo, brasil. Boletim do Instituto de Pesca,
(1), 17–27.
Au, W. W. 1993. Characteristics of dolphin sonar signals.
In: Au, W. W. The sonar of dolphins (pp. 115–139).
New York, Springer.
Au, W. W. & Hastings, M. C. 2008. Principles of marine
bioacoustics. New York, Springer.
Bass, A. H. & Mckibben, J. R. 2003. Neural mechanisms
and behaviors for acoustic communication in teleost
fish, Progress in Neurobiology, 69(1), 1–26.
Bowen, W. 1997. Role of marine mammals in aquatic
ecosystems. Marine Ecology Progress Series,
, 267–274.
Brasil. 2008. Instrução Normativa IBAMA n. 189, de 23 de
setembro de 2008. Proibir o exercício da pesca de arrasto
com tração motorizada para a captura de camarão rosa
(Farfantepenaeus paulensis, F. brasiliensis e F. subtilis),
camarão sete barbas (Xiphopenaeus kroyeri),camarão
branco (Litopenaeus schmitti), santana ou vermelho
(Pleoticus muelleri) e barba ruça (Artemesia longinaris),
anualmente. Brasília, DF: Ibama. Available from: https://
www.icmbio.gov.br/cepsul/images/stories/legislacao/
Instrucao_normativa/2008/in_ibama_189_2008_
defesocamaroes_revoga_in_ibama_91_2006_92_2006.
pdf Access date: 2020 Oct 05.
Brasil. 2016. Decreto de 2 de agosto de 2016. Cria o Refúgio
de Vida Silvestre do Arquipélago de Alcatrazes no litoral
norte do Estado de São Paulo. Brasília, DF: Presidência
da República. Available from: https://www.icmbio.gov.
br/cepsul/images/stories/dec_pr_02_08_2016_revis_
arquipelago_alcatrazes_sp.pdf Access date: 2024 Mar 21.
Committee on Taxonomy. 2022. List of marine mammal
species and subspecies, society for marine mammalogy.
[S. l.]: Committee on Taxonomy. Available from:
marinemammalscience.org/science-and-publications/
list-marine-mammal-species Access date: 2023 Aug 6.
Corbane, C., Najman, L., Pecoul, E., Demagistri, L. & Petit,
M. 2010. A complete processing chain for ship detection
using optical satellite imagery. International journal of
remote sensing, 31(22), 5837– 5854.
Figueiredo, G. C. E., Amaral, K. B. D. & Santos, M. C. D. O.
Cetaceans along the southeastern Brazilian
coast: occurrence, distribution and niche inference
at local scale. PeerJ, 8, e10000.
Fraser, M. D., Mcwhinnie, L. H., Canessa, R. R. & Darimont,
C. T. 2020. Compliance of small vessels to minimum
distance regulations for humpback and killer whales in
the salish sea. Marine Policy, 121, 104171.
Ihler, A., Hutchins, J. & Smyth, P. 2006. Adaptive event
detection with time-varying poisson processes,
Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGKDD international
conference on Knowledge discovery and
data mining, 207–216.
Johnston, P., Baruwa, S. & Wyatt, R. 2015. Remote
passive acoustic monitoring: Listening for whales and
dolphins from the safety of land. The Leading Edge,
(12), 1516–1519.
Kachelriess, D., Wegmann, M., Gollock, M. & Pettorelli, N.
The application of remote sensing for marine
protected area management. Ecological Indicators,
, 169–177.
Kaplan, M. B. & Mooney, T. A. 2015. Ambient noise and
temporal patterns of boat activity in the us virgin islands
national park. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 98(1-2), 221–228.
Kline, L. R., Deangelis, A. I., Mcbride, C., Rodgers, G. G.,
Rowell, T. J., Smith, J., Stanley, J. A., Read, A. D. & Van
Parijs, S. M. 2020. Sleuthing with sound: Understanding
vessel activity in marine protected areas using passive
acoustic monitoring. Marine Policy, 120, 104138.
Lester, S. E., Halpern, B. S., Grorud-Colvert, K., Lubchenco,
J., Ruttenberg, B. I., Gaines, S. D., Airame, S. &
Warner, R. R. 2009. Biological effects within no-take
Use of PAM for MPAs
Ocean and Coastal Research 2024, v72:e24081 12
Mariani et al.
marine reserves: a global synthesis. Marine Ecology
Progress Series, 384, 33–46.
Lutz, S., Barnes, R., Kurvits, T., Lutz, S. J. & Martin, A. H.
Fish carbon: exploring marine vertebrate carbon
services. Arendal, Grid-Arendal. Available from:
policycommons.net/artifacts/2390429/fish-carbon/
Access date: 2024 Mar 21.
Mellinger, D. K., Stafford, K. M., Moore, S. E., Dziak, R. P.
& Matsumoto, H. 2007. An overview of fixed passive
acoustic observation methods for cetaceans.
Oceanography, 20(4), 36–45.
Merchant, N. D., Witt, M. J., Blondel, P., Godley, B. J. &
Smith, G. H. 2012. Assessing sound exposure from
shipping in coastal waters using a single hydrophone
and Automatic Identification System (AIS) data.
Marine Pollution Bulletin, 64(7), 1320–1329.
Moore, S. E. 2008. Marine mammals as ecosystem
sentinels. Journal of Mammalogy, 89(3), 534–540.
Paschoalini, V. U., Troina, G. C., Campos, L. B. & De Oliveira
Santos, M. C. 2021. Trophic ecology and foraging areas
of cetaceans sampled in the coastal waters of southeastern brazil assessed through skin δ13c and δ15n.
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the
United Kingdom, 101(2), 471– 480.
Payne, R. S. & Mcvay, S. 1971. Songs of humpback whales.
Science, 173(3997), 585–597.
Richardson, W. J. & Wursig, B. 1997. Influences of manmade noise and other human actions on cetacean
behaviour. Marine & Freshwater Behaviour & Phy
(1-4), 183–209.
Roman, J., Estes, J. A., Morissette, L., Smith, C., Costa, D.,
Mccarthy, J., Nation, J., Nicol, S., Pershing, A. &
Smetacek, V. 2014. Whales as marine ecosystem
engineers. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment,
(7), 377–385.
Sanchez-Gendriz, I. & Padovese, L. R. 2017. A methodology
for analyzing biological choruses from long-term
passive acoustic monitoring in natural areas. Ecological
Informatics, 41, 1–10.
Santos, M. C. D. O., Lailson-Brito, J., Flach, L., Oshima, J.
E., Figueiredo, G. C., Carvalho, R. R., Ventura, E. S.,
Molina, J. & Azevedo, A. F. 2019. Cetacean movements
in coastal waters of the southwestern atlantic ocean.
Biota Neotropica, 19.
Santos, M. C. D. O., Siciliano, S., Vicente, A. F. D. C.,
Alvarenga, F. S., Zampirolli, E., Souza, S. P. D. &
Maranho, A. 2010. Cetacean records along São Paulo
state coast, southeastern Brazil. Brazilian Journal of
Oceanography, 58, 123–142.
Siciliano, S., De Oliveira Santos, M. C., Vicente, A. F.,
Alvarenga, F. S., Zampirolli, E., Brito, J. L., Azevedo,
A. F. & Pizzorno, J. L. A. 2004. Strandings and feeding
records of Bryde’s whales (balaenoptera edeni) in
south-eastern Brazil. Journal of the Marine Biological
Association of the United Kingdom, 84(4), 857–859.
Sokal, R. R. & Rohlf, F. J. 1981. Biometry: The Principles
and Practices of Statistics in Biological Research.
New York, Freeman.
Sorensen, E., Ou, H. H., Zurk, L. M. & Siderius, M. 2010.
Passive acoustic sensing for detection of small vessels.
In: OCEANS 2010 MTS/IEEE SEATTLE/IEEE.
Stern, S. J. & Friedlaender, A. 2017. Migration and movement.
In. Wursig, B., Thewissen, J. & Kovacs, K. (Eds.).
Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals (3. ed.; pp. 602-606).
Amsterdam: Academic press.
Tavares, M., Moreno, I. B., Siciliano, S., Rodriguez, D.,
De O. Santos, M. C., Lailson-Brito Jr, J. & Fabian, M.
E. 2010. Biogeography of common dolphins (genus
delphinus) in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean.
Mammal Review, 40(1), 40–64.
Thomson, D. H. & Richardson, W. J. 1995. Marine mammal
sounds. In: Richardson, W. J., Greene Jr, C. R., Malme,
C. I. & Thomson, D. H. (Eds.). Marine mammals and
noise (pp. 159-204). San Diego: Academic press.
Urick, R. J. 1975. Principles of underwater sound (2. ed.).
New York, McGraw-Hill.
Wood, F. & Evans, W. 1980. Adaptiveness and ecology
of echolocation in toothed whales. In: Busnel, R. G.
& Fish, J. F. (Eds.). Animal Sonar Systems (vol. 28;
pp. 381–425). Boston: Springer.
Worm, B., Barbier, E. B., Beaumont, N., Duffy, J. E.,
Folke, C., Halpern, B. S., Jackson, J. B., Lotze, H.
K., Micheli, F., Palumbi, S. R., Sala, E., Selkoe, K.
A., Stachowicz, J. J. & Watson, R. 2006. Impacts of
biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services. Science,
(5800), 787–790.
Zerbini, A. N., Secchi, E. R., Siciliano, S. & Simoes-Lopes,
P. C. 1997. A review of the occurrence and distribution
of whales of the genus balaenoptera along the Brazilian
coast. Report of the International Whaling Commission,
, 407–417.
Zimmer, W. M. 2013. Range estimation of cetaceans with
compact volumetric arrays. The Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America, 134(3), 2610–2618.