Material properties of Pacific hake, Humboldt squid, and two species of myctophids in the California Current

Estimating target strength and physical characteristics of gas-bearing mesopelagic fish from wideband in situ echoes using a viscous-elastic scattering model

Wideband (38 and 50-260 kHz) target strength of organisms were measured in situ using a towed platform in mesopelagic (200-1000 m depth) layers. Organisms with a gas-inclusion are strong scatterers of sound and acoustically distinct from organisms lacking one. In the mesopelagic zone, some of the fish species and physonect siphonophores have a gas-inclusion. Trawl and multinet biological sampling as well as photographic evidence indicate that in the study area (eastern mid-Atlantic Ocean) the majority of the gas-bearing organisms were fish. Subsequently, using a two-layer viscous-elastic spherical gas backscattering model, physical characteristics such as gas-bladder features and body flesh properties were deduced from the measured backscattering signal of individual gas-bearing fish. Acoustic techniques are non-extractive, can be used for the monitoring and quantification of marine organisms in a time- and cost-effective manner, and suit studies of the mesopelagic zone, which is logistically challenging. Vessel-mounted acoustics, widely used for epipelagic studies, has limitations for mesopelagic studies as the deep organisms are inaccessible to high-frequency (≳100 kHz) acoustic pulses transmitted from the surface due to absorption. Therefore, a towed platform equipped with wideband acoustics has several features that can be utilized for monitoring the mesopelagic dense scattering layers containing mixed species.

ZooScatR-An r package for modelling the scattering properties of weak scattering targets using the distorted wave Born approximation

A thorough understanding of the scattering characteristics of marine organisms is a prerequisite for robust quantitative fisheries acoustic data processing or interpretation. Target strength models, such as the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) can be used to improve the understanding of field recordings of weakly scattering targets. With acoustic methods now being used by a wide audience, allowing access to such models becomes a necessity. To ease access to the DWBA model, an r package (zooscatr) which includes a web application and the ability to parameterise the model either through the web application, text files, or pure scripting has been developed and is now freely available on Github.