Coastal observatories for monitoring of fish behaviour and their responses to environmental changes

Abstract

The inclusion of behavioral components in the analysis of a community can be of paramount importance in marine ecology. Diel (i.e., 24-h based), seasonal activity rhythms, or longer durational in behavioral responses can result in shifts in populations, and therefore on measurable abundances. Here, we review the value of developing cabled video observatory technology for the remote, long-term, and high-frequency monitoring of fish and their environments in coastal temperate areas. We provide details on the methodological requirements and constraints for the appropriate measurement of fish behavior over various seasonal scales (24 h, seasonal, annual) with camera systems mounted at fixed observatory locations. We highlight the importance of using marine sensors to simultaneously collect relevant environmental data in parallel to image data acquisition. Here we present multiparametric video, oceanographic, and meteorological data collected from the Mediterranean observatory platform, OBSEA (www.obsea.es; 20 m water depth). These data are reviewed in relation to ongoing and future developments of cabled observatory science. Two key approaches for the future improvement of cabled observatory technology are: (1) the application of Artificial Intelligence to aid in the analysis of increasingly large, complex, and highly interrelated biological and environmental data sets, and (2) the development of geographical observational networks to enable the reliable spatial analysis of observed populations over extended distances.