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*HAMMER: Hydro-Acoustic Model for Mitigation and Ecological Response (Rossington, Benson, Lepper, Jones. In press . Marine Pollution Bulletin)
Rick Bruintjes1,2,3, Diane Jones3, Tom Benson3, Bryan Tozer3, Andrew Radford2, Stephen Simpson1 1College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, UK
2School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, UK 3HR Wallingford, Howberry Park, Wallingford, UK
MOFING; predicting Movement Of Fishes In response to pile driviNG noise
Anthropogenic noise is a global problem on land and underwater
Fishes are impacted by man-made noise:
Cortisol
Communication
Damaged hearing
Current situation UK:
Government wants new large offshore wind farms (fig. 1)
Building of farms (using pile driving) starts in 2014
Knowledge gap:
Underwater noise is included in (inter)national legislation (EU 2008; DEFRA 2009)
Accurate assessment of the impacts of noise are missing!
Modelling tool:
HR Wallingford developed a model to predict movement of fish in response to noise (HAMMER*: see definition bottom of poster)
However, experimental scientific data are missing
Effects of pile driving noise on an important North Sea fish
Experiments examining the impact of piling noise on physiology and behaviour in sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax)
Opercular beat rate (stress)
Focal fish
Output HAMMER modelling tool with new parameters
Are sea bass affected by piling noise?
Fish increased opercular beat rates during noise, indicating ↑ stress
Following piling noise, fish tended to spend less time close to the tank edge, suggesting ↓ anxiety
Sea bass behaviour and physiology is negatively impacted by noise
Does the model predict that migrating sea bass are impacted by noise?
Noise sensitive fish reach the shallow breeding ground much later
Later arrival to suitable breeding grounds could lead to less
offspring, reduced fitness and less recruits for harvested fish stocks!
Figure 4. Modelling response of migrating sea bass to pile noise (results).
The stills show the predicted response of sea bass to noise in different time steps. White particles represent noise sensitive fish, red particles represent noise insensitive fish. The fish migrate from the deep (top left) to the shallows (white ‘*’) in Liverpool bay, UK. Pile driving occurs 8 h/day @ 210dB re 1µPa, freq. 160Hz). The top right of all stills shows the time (e.g. A = after 3h of release). The orange grid in B and E represent the area where the fish respond to the noise and the red ‘+’ are way-point marks. Piling location is 32000, 40000 BNG (white ‘º’ in B).
Aggression
Fig. 1
Research aim: Improve HAMMER* ecologically and
obtain experimental data to feed into the model.
Piling playback
Op
erc
ula
r b
ea
r ra
te d
iffe
ren
ce
Fig 2. Piling increases stress
*
Ambient Piling
Treatments:
Ambient noise: Amb – Amb – Amb (each 2 min) Piliing noise: Amb – Pile – Amb (each 2 min)
Speaker
Dif
fere
nce i
n t
ime
clo
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o t
an
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ge f
ollo
win
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layb
ac
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s)
Ambient
Fig 3. Fish tend to decrease time close to tank edge following piling
◊
A
F E D
C B
*
* *
*
*
º
*
Open field test
Similar noise setup as above (using playbacks)
All tank walls, apart from one, were white to create a novel environment
All movement automatically scored as soon as the fish was introduced
Fish were free swimming
Treatments:
Ambient noise: Amb – Amb – Amb (2-15-2 min) Piliing noise: Amb – Pile – Amb (2-15-2 min)
Piling
Contact details
Rick Bruintjes, Biosciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter, EX4 4QD.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by NERC and the University of Bristol. Many thanks to Irene Völlmy for the poster layout.
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