Saeed Shafiei Sabet – s.shafiei.sabet@guilan.ac.ir
Twitter: @SaeedSHSABET
Instagram: @s.shafiei.sabet.anim.beh
Fisheries Department, Faculty of Natural Resources
University of Guilan
Sowmeh Sara, Guilan 1144
Iran
Popular version of 3aAB2 – Experimental sound exposure studies on aquatic animals; an early attempt to develop underwater bioacoustics in Iran
Presented at the 187th ASA Meeting
Read the abstract at https://eppro01.ativ.me//web/index.php?page=Session&project=ASAFALL24&id=3765253
–The research described in this Acoustics Lay Language Paper may not have yet been peer reviewed–
Impact of sound on aquatic animals
Human-generated sound, called ‘anthropogenic sound,’ is now widely recognized as an environmental stressor. It affects aquatic life in both marine and freshwater habitats. Over the last few decades, policy makers, animal welfare communities, behavioural biologists and environmental managers have been increasingly interested in understanding how man-made sound may lead to negative consequences on both terrestrial and underwater animals. Aquatic animals can be negatively affected by anthropogenic sound in many ways. For example anthropogenic sound can mask biologically relevant sounds, cause attentional shifts, affect foraging performance and interfere in communications in aquatic animals among taxa. Therefore, we need to understand how anthropogenic sound may affect individuals, to eventually be able to assess the impact of anthropogenic sound on populations, communities, and ecosystems.
Many crustaceans and fish species have been artificially introduced to confined areas for different purposes. Crustaceans and fish are being used in laboratory conditions for scientific research, in aquaria and zoos for entertainment, as well as in aquaculture facilities (e.g., cages, races, pens) for breeding, restocking and harvesting around the world. As a result, aquatic animals in captivity may be continuously exposed to a variety of sound sources. Although there are relatively well-documented studies exploring anthropogenic sound effects on aquatic animals across taxa in the Global North Countries, this field of research is less developed in the Global South Countries. Moreover, policy makers have already set regulations for marine environments to safeguard a so-called good environmental status, but there are no agreements yet for freshwater habitats. This means freshwater crustaceans and fishes in a diversity of waterbody types are more or less exposed to man-made sound without any incentive to control impact and without any protection by law.
Sound exposure studies
To better understand how sound affects aquatic animals, I conducted several sound exposure studies on captive fish and crustaceans. In my experimental studies, I explored how anthropogenic sound affects captive fish (e.g., zebrafish and guppy) and crustaceans (red cherry shrimp). Figure 1 illustrates behavioral changes in red cherry shrimp when exposed to different sound levels, showing how they react to sound stress.
Figure 1. Behavioral changes of the freshwater red cherry shrimp in response to an underwater speaker. Behavioral responsiveness of shrimp when exposed to acoustic stimuli was categorized as movement activity impacts and feeding activity impacts (Image courtesy of: Azarm-Karnagh et al., 2023; © 2024 Springer Nature).
Figure 1. Behavioral changes of the freshwater red cherry shrimp in response to an underwater speaker. Behavioral responsiveness of shrimp when exposed to acoustic stimuli was categorized as movement activity impacts and feeding activity impacts (Image courtesy of: Azarm-Karnagh et al., 2023; © 2024 Springer Nature).
I examined various sound exposure treatments to provide insights that may be useful for future explorations for indoor and outdoor sound impact studies as well as for assessing animal welfare and productivity in captive situations. For example, I explored short-term behavioural parameters, which are indicators of sound-related stress, disturbance and deterrence. My findings may also raise awareness for sound levels in laboratories and the potential effect on reliability for fish as a model species for medical and pharmaceutical studies. As a follow-up step of my PhD research, I also explored the complexity of sound fields in indoor fish tanks by selecting a different set-up for each study, which makes behavioural analyses and direct comparisons not only relevant within each study, but also provides insight into the role of fish tank acoustics on ‘natural’ and experimental exposure conditions. Several behavioural states are likely to reflect considerable changes in underlying physiology, which would be interesting and feasible to investigate for more long-term consequences, but this was beyond the scope of the current step of my research lab priorities.
Development of bioacoustics in Iran and future directions
This research study is a pioneering effort in a relatively new field in Iran. This research is important because Iran has a broad range of coastlines with The Caspian Sea, The Persian Gulf and Oman Sea and there are quite diverse habitats and fragile ecosystems in these aquatic areas (See figure 2). However, yet there are large gaps in our knowledge of effects of anthropogenic sound on aquatic animals in Iran. Further studies are needed to assess anthropogenic sound impacts on aquatic animals and the potential cascading effects at the community level of the aquatic environment in Iran. This research, a series of experiments, lays the groundwork for future bioacoustics studies in Iran and other countries in the West Asia. I call, therefore, for more grounded laboratory-based and field based empirical research of global collaborations and high quality data collection towards open science in bioacoustics.
Figure 2. An overview of the geographical location of Iran’s aquatic habitats (yellow circles); The Caspian Sea in the north of Iran and The Persian Gulf and The Gulf of Oman/Oman Sea. Image courtesy of: https://www.google.com/maps
Figure 2. An overview of the geographical location of Iran’s aquatic habitats (yellow circles); The Caspian Sea in the north of Iran and The Persian Gulf and The Gulf of Oman/Oman Sea. Image courtesy of:
Acknowledgments
Finally, I am very grateful to my graduate M.Sc. students: Reza Mohsenpour, Sasan Azarm-Karnagh, Marziyeh Amini Fard for their excellent collaborations in behavioural studies and high quality data collection at the Fisheries Department, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Guilan, Sowmeh Sara, Iran. I established and set up my research lab in 2016 and actively recruit enthusiastic undergraduate and graduate students by organizing workshops, seminars, mini research projects and relevant course material to develop this field of academic research in Iran. Hereby I would like to thank Hans Slabbekoorn my PhD supervisor at Leiden University who have helped and supported me to develop my underwater bioacoustics lab in my home country, Iran.
Selected references:
Azarm-Karnagh, S., López Greco, L., & Shafiei Sabet, S. (2024). Anthropogenic noise impacts on invertebrates: case of freshwater red cherry shrimp (Neocaridina davidi). In The Effects of Noise on Aquatic Life: Principles and Practical Considerations (pp. 1-12). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Azarm-Karnagh, S., López Greco, L., & Shafiei Sabet, S. (2023). Annoying noise: effect of anthropogenic underwater noise on the movement and feeding performance in the red cherry shrimp, Neocaridina davidi. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11, 1091314.
Shafiei Sabet, S., Karnagh, S. A., & Azbari, F. Z. (2019). Experimental test of sound and light exposure on water flea swimming behaviour. In Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (Vol. 37, No. 1). AIP Publishing.
Radford, A. N., Kerridge, E., & Simpson, S. D. (2014). Acoustic communication in a noisy world: can fish compete with anthropogenic noise?. Behavioral Ecology, 25(5), 1022-1030.
Slabbekoorn, H., Bouton, N., van Opzeeland, I., Coers, A., ten Cate, C., & Popper, A. N. (2010). A noisy spring: the impact of globally rising underwater sound levels on fish. Trends in ecology & evolution, 25(7), 419-427.
Popper, A. N., & Hastings, M. C. (2009). The effects of anthropogenic sources of sound on fishes. Journal of fish biology, 75(3), 455-489.