Abstract
Acoustic enrichment (AE)—the playback of ambient sound from healthy coral reefs—shows promise in attracting fish larvae to degraded or artificial reefs, but previous evaluations have used invasive diver-based sampling techniques, limiting most studies to short deployments in benign and accessible environments. This study used fully autonomous cameras to non-invasively evaluate AE efficacy in attracting settlement-stage fish larvae and mature fish over large fractions of a lunar cycle. We deployed an AE system in Kāne’ohe Bay (O‘ahu, Hawai‘i) over three spawning events (August 2023, June–July 2024). Treatment (active speaker) and control (inactive speaker) sites were built by placing artificial structures, autonomous cameras, and hydrophones on a sandy seabed at 5 m water depth, with sites separated by 42–65 m. Treatment and control designations were alternated between deployments to remove potential spatial bias. Manual and semi-automated image analysis found larval counts at both sites peaking around the new moon, but the treatment site attracted 4–14 times more larvae. Both sites encountered similar numbers of mature fish. These results demonstrate that autonomous camera systems can non-invasively study fish larval presence and provide further support that AE can enhance larval fish response.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the following individuals for making this work possible from the R3D Consortium: Ben Jones, Sean Mahaffey, Aricia Argyris, Mark Aruda, Ian Robertson, Zhenhua Huang, Ayrton Medina-Rodriguez, Mert Gokdepe, Brady Halvorson, Jon Chase, Charlotte White, Cami Dillon, Kristian McDonald, Anna Mikkelsen, Mollie Asbury, Jessica Haver, Hendrikje Jorissen, Marion Chapeau, Robert Toonen, Christopher Suchocki, Van Wishingrad, Christopher Jury, Nina Schiettekatte, Madeleine Hardt, Claire Lewis, Claire Bardin, Joshua Kualani, Crawford Drury, Kira Hughes, Josh Hancock, Carlo Caruso, Andrea Grottoli, Shannon Dixon, Josh Voss, Allison Klein, Sid Verma, Alejandro Alvaro, Richard Argall, Kevin Chun, William Hicks, Alex LeBon, John Yeh, Daniel Wangpraseurt, Samapti Kundu, Lindsey Badder, and Stefan Kolle. Many thanks to Erik Franklin and his expertise regarding fish larvae trends from the region’s perspective. We wish to also express gratitude to the gracious staff at HIMB, including Kelsey Maloney and Guan-Yan Chen. Austin Greene from Ecologis Consulting LLC, designed, manufactured, and supported the development and use of the Kilocams used in the deployment of this experiment. Keoni Schar designed and printed the initial 3D printed camera battery mount used in the 2024 deployment. Daniel Wangpraseurt of Scripps Institution of Oceanography provided additional field SCUBA support.
Funding
This study was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency award HR001121S0012 (A.T., J.M.).
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Boulais, O., Thode, A., Pickering, C. et al. Autonomous cameras reveal larval reef fish responses to acoustic enrichment and lunar phase.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-57857-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-57857-9
Keywords
- Bioacoustics
- Fish larvae
- Acoustic enrichment
- Recruitment
- Reef restoration
Source: Ecology - nature.com
