Developments and evaluation of prototype acoustic system for the reproduction of marine biological sounds

The sounds of marine organisms serve as an important means for their survival and reproduction, with each sound serving purposes such as communication, mating, territoriality, echolocation, and foraging. This study presents the development and evaluation of a preliminary acoustic system designed to reproduce the underwater sounds of fish inhabiting the coastal waters of Korea. The underwater sounds of the three targets species (brown croaker, Pacific cod, and small yellow croaker) were recorded over an extended period using a hydrophone in a large sea cage. The acoustic characteristics of the recorded biological sounds were analyzed, and based on these characteristics, a sound reproduction algorithm was applied. To reproduce biological sounds with a wide frequency bandwidth, a system was developed by coupling two transducers: one for low frequencies and one for mid frequencies. To evaluate the performance of the developed prototype system, both the actual recorded sounds and its reproduced sounds were transmitted from the system and recorded with hydrophone in a large sea cage environment. The two received signals were then compared and analyzed in terms of similarity and correlation. The development of the systems is planned to be utilized in future research on biological sound management and ocean soundscapes. Work supported by KRIT-CT-22-056.