DOI: 10.5061/dryad.5tb2rbp38
title: Hurricane impacts on a coral reef soundscape

description: Soundscape ecology is an emerging field in both terrestrial and aquatic
 ecosystems, and provides a powerful approach for assessing habitat quality
 and the ecological response of sound-producing species to natural and
 anthropogenic perturbations. Little is known of how underwater soundscapes
 respond during and after severe episodic disturbances, such as hurricanes.
 This study addresses the impacts of Hurricane Irma on the coral reef
 soundscape at two spur-and-groove fore-reef sites within the Florida Keys
 USA, using passive acoustic data collected before and during the storm at
 Western Dry Rocks (WDR) and before, during and after the storm at Eastern
 Sambo (ESB). As the storm passed, the cumulative acoustic exposure near
 the seabed at these sites was comparable to a small vessel operating
 continuously overhead for 1-2 weeks.  Before the storm, sound
 pressure levels (SPLs) showed a distinct pattern of low frequency diel
 variation and increased high frequency sound during crepuscular periods.
 The low frequency band was partitioned in two groups representative of
 soniferous reef fish, whereas the high frequency band represented snapping
 shrimp sound production. Daily daytime patterns in low-frequency sound
 production largely persisted in the weeks following the hurricane.
 Crepuscular sound production by snapping shrimp was maintained
 post-hurricane with only a small shift (~1.5dB) in the level of daytime vs
 nighttime sound production for this high frequency band. This study
 suggests that on short time scales, temporal patterns in the coral reef
 soundscape were relatively resilient to acoustic energy exposure during
 the storm, as well as changes in the benthic habitat and environmental
 conditions resulting from hurricane damage.
description: Recordings began 07/14/2017
 at 12:00 and ended 10/17/2017 at 22:02 for ESB and 10/01/2017 at 23:40 for
 WDR. The instrument was programmed to record for 120 seconds every 20
 minutes  (72 files/day) at a 48 kHz sample rate. The hydrophone recorders
 were calibrated with a flat frequency response over the ~0.02-40kHz band.
 In total, 34,455 2-minute recordings were collected as part of this
 study.   Water temperature was logged by the ST-300 every 20 minutes,
 coincident with the acoustic recordings.
description:   <b>Description
 </b> As a part of a larger study,
 eight SoundTrap ST-300 acoustic recorders (<i>Ocean-Instruments
 NZ</i>) were deployed in the lower Florida Keys National Marine
 Sanctuary (FKNMS) in July 2017. In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma’s
 (Category 4) passing directly over the FKNMS in September 2017, only two
 hydrophones, those deployed at Western Dry Rocks (WDR) and Eastern Sambo
 (ESB) reefs, were recovered. This opportunistic dataset recorded natural
 noise impacts to the biological coral reef soundscape before, during, and
 after the hurricane. <b>Data Acquisition
 </b> Recordings began 07/14/2017
 at 12:00 and ended 10/17/2017 at 22:02 for ESB and 10/01/2017 at 23:40 for
 WDR. The instrument was programmed to record for 120 seconds every 20
 minutes  (72 files/day) at a 48 kHz sample rate. The hydrophone recorders
 were calibrated with a flat frequency response over the ~0.02-40kHz band.
 In total, 34,455 2-minute recordings were collected as part of this
 study.   Water temperature was logged by the ST-300 every 20 minutes,
 coincident with the acoustic recordings. ST-300 instrument locations
 and serial #:   WSB:   24.445°N, 81.926°W //
 Serial # 201355304 ESB:   24.491°N, 81.664°W //
 Serial # 67383320 <b>Data File Access
 </b> The acoustic data stored in
 *.wav files may be read into MATLAB using functions included in MATLAB,
 with the following calibration (dB_cal) values:  WSB =  172.2 dB;  ESB=
  177.9 dB. Example:<br>
 cal=10^(dB_cal/20); [y,fs]=audioread(‘filename.wav’); % read in audiofile<br> y=y(fs*5:end) % remove first 5 seconds that have calibration sound y=(y-mean(y))*cal; % demeaned and response correct to mPa   Log-file in *.xml format can be read by any text editor.  They contain additional information on the start and stop of each recording in local and UTC time zones.    Temperature data stored in *.csv format may be read using any text editor or spreadsheet program.  Times are expressed in seconds since 1970 and temperatures are in °C.