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ICES Journal of Marine Science: Journal du Conseil 2009 66(6):1029-1036; doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsp130
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© 2009 International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. Published by Oxford Journals. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following ICES Journal of Marine Science issue: The Ecosystem Approach with Fisheries Acoustics and Complementary Technologies [View the issue table of contents]

Ecological studies of marine mammals using a seabed-mounted echosounder

Lise Doksæter, Olav R. Godø, Erik Olsen, Leif Nøttestad and Ruben Patel

Institute of Marine Research, PO Box 1870 Nordnes, NO-5817 Bergen, Norway

Correspondence to L. Doksæter: tel: +47 55 238662; fax: +47 55 238531; e-mail: lise.doksaeter{at}imr.no.

Doksæter, L., Godø, O. R., Olsen, E., Nøttestad, L., and Patel, R. 2009. Ecological studies of marine mammals using a seabed-mounted echosounder. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1029–1036.

A seabed-mounted, upward-looking, 38 kHz echosounder (Simrad EK60) was used to monitor cetaceans for 128 d between July 2004 and June 2005. The echosounder was placed at 52°N 30°W at a depth of 910 m, in a frontal area with continuous upwelling creating a hotspot of marine life at all trophic levels. Echo tracks were observed, apparently resulting from one or more animals in close temporal and spatial proximity. The 69 "acoustic detections" were examined with a principal component analysis (PCA) considering mean target strength (TS), group size, and maximum dive depth and duration. The PCA conservatively classified 45 of the acoustic detections as "cetaceans". Their mean TS values varied between –5 and –36 dB, in agreement with earlier TS measurements of whales and dolphins. Several of the supposed cetaceans were apparently feeding in the "deep-scattering layer" when this ascended at night. This study demonstrates that cetacean behaviour, including swimming, feeding, and vocalizing, can be observed and monitored with stationary active-acoustic instrumentation.

Keywords: acoustic detections, marine mammals, mid-Atlantic Ridge

Received 7 August 2008; accepted 20 February 2009.


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