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Amorim MCP, Wanjala JA, Vieira M, Bolgan M, Connaughton MA, Pereira BP, Fonseca PJ, Ribeiro F. Detection of invasive fish species with passive acoustics: Discriminating between native and non-indigenous sciaenids. Mar Environ Res 2023; 188:106017. [PMID: 37178663 DOI: 10.1016/j.marenvres.2023.106017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2023] [Revised: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 05/15/2023]
Abstract
Invasive alien species have been rising exponentially in the last decades impacting biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The soniferous weakfish, Cynoscion regalis, is a recent invasive sciaenid species in the Iberian Peninsula and was first reported in the Tagus estuary in 2015. There is concern about its possible impacts on native species, namely the confamiliar meagre, Argyrosomus regius, as there is overlap in their feeding regime, habitat use, and breeding behaviour. Here, we characterised the sciaenid-like sounds recently recorded in the Tagus estuary and showed that they are made by weakfish as they have similar numbers of pulses and pulse periods to the sounds made by captive breeding weakfish. We further demonstrate that breeding grunts from weakfish and the native sciaenid, recorded either in captivity or Tagus estuary, differ markedly in sound duration, number of pulses and pulse period in the two species, but overlap in their spectral features. Importantly, these differences are easily detected through visual and aural inspections of the recordings, making acoustic recognition easy even for the non-trained person. We propose that passive acoustic monitoring can be a cost-effective tool for in situ mapping of weakfish outside its natural distribution and an invaluable tool for early detection and to monitor its expansion.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Clara P Amorim
- MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, ISPA-Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, Portugal; Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
| | - Joan A Wanjala
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal; IMBRSEA Master Programme, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Manuel Vieira
- MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, ISPA-Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, Portugal; Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal; cE3c - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Marta Bolgan
- MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, ISPA-Instituto Universitário, Lisbon, Portugal; Ocean Science Consulting Limited, Dunbar, Scotland, UK
| | | | - Beatriz P Pereira
- MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Paulo J Fonseca
- Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal; cE3c - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Filipe Ribeiro
- MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre / ARNET - Aquatic Research Network, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
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