Air movement sound production by alewife, white sucker, and four salmonid fishes suggests the phenomenon is widespread among freshwater fishes

Abstract

We sought to describe sounds of some of the common fishes suspected of producing unidentified air movement sounds in soundscape surveys of freshwater habitats in the New England region of North America. Soniferous behavior of target fishes was monitored in real time in the field in both natural and semi-natural environments by coupling Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) with direct visual observation from shore and underwater video recording. Sounds produced by five species including, alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus, Clupeidae), white sucker (Catastomus commersonii, Catostomidae), brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis, Salmonidae), brown trout (Salmo trutta, Salmonidae), and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss, Salmonidae) were validated and described in detail for the first time. In addition, field recordings of sounds produced by an unidentified salmonid were provisionally attributed to Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar, Salmonidae). Sounds produced by all species are of the air movement type and appear to be species specific. Our data based on fishes in three distinct orders suggest the phenomenon may be more ecologically important than previously thought. Even if entirely incidental, air movement sounds appear to be uniquely identifiable to species and, hence, hold promise for PAM applications in freshwater and marine habitats.