Snappy Comeback: Can the acoustic behavior of snapping shrimp ( Alpheus spp.) infer mangrove habitat recovery in Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Puerto Rico?

The mangroves of Jobos Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Puerto Rico, provide critical ecosystem services that have been impacted by extreme weather events and anthropogenic development. To inform mangrove restoration, pre-restoration monitoring is essential to assess restoration trajectory and success. In tropical habitats, snapping shrimp (Alpheus spp.) are associated with habitat health and can be monitored by their acoustic behavior. Here, we established the first use of passive acoustic monitoring in Jobos Bay to examine habitat health as a function of shrimp acoustic behavior. We analyzed the subtidal soundscape over 7 days in January 2025 at three sites; anthropogenically damaged, storm damaged, and reference. Snapping shrimp acoustic behavior was analyzed as a function of snaps ≥123 dB re 1 μPa per second (2–24 kHz) to include a 100-m habitat range, calculated from manual annotations. Findings show that the reference had significantly greater snapping rates than the storm damaged site (z = 7.32, p < 0.0001). Additionally, the storm damaged site had significantly lower snapping rates than the anthropogenically damaged site (z = −6.77, p < 0.0001), suggesting differences in habitat quality related to varying environmental stressors. These results indicate snapping shrimp serve as a bioindicator of mangrove habitat quality within Jobos Bay.