NautILUS
Marine noise in the Ligurian Sea:
From systematic signal analysis to the impact on marine species

Through a multidisciplinary collaboration among researchers in marine biology and ecology, geosciences and acoustic signals processing, this pilot project will provide essential information to i) assess the multilevel consequences of anthropogenic noise at sea, and ii) automatically analyze and maximize the exploitation of the quite large existing and future datasets from the marine sciences and geosciences community.
The undersea environment has long been depicted as a silent world. Research carried out in the last decades, however, has raised a growing awareness about sounds and noises as important components of the marine environment. The marine noise consists of biotic (produced by animals like fish and mammals), abiotic (e.g. breaking waves, currents, ice breaking), and anthropogenic sounds (e.g. sonar, seismic prospecting, drilling, recreational and fishing vessels), the sum of them being referred to as soundscape. The raise of global industrialization and trading has resulted in a dramatic increase in anthropogenic noises, recognized as a major global pollutant in the 21st century. Anthropogenic noise may impact a large variety of marine animal species, with consequences ranging from no effect to immediate death.
In this project, we will simultaneously deploy i) highly sensitive hydrophones used by acousticians to record both low-amplitude biogenic sounds (e.g., fish calls) and anthropogenic noise in the 10 kHz to 50 kHz band, and ii) OBS/H (Ocean Bottom Seismometer and Hydrophones) of the Earth sciences community , to assess potential impacts on marine organisms, from coastal waters to the open sea in the Ligurian Sea. Selected coastal sites around Villefranche/mer, characterized by different levels of anthropogenic noise, impact will be used to test for putative effects of marine noise on juvenile fish behavior, settlement rate, morphology, growth and other physiological variables.
We will develop tools to analyze and extract from seafloor seismologically-oriented data, environmental and anthropogenic signals. A systematic exploration of already existing large seismological and acoustic datasets in the Ligurian open Sea will allow to investigate the potential effect of marine noise in the open sea on fin whale acoustic signaling.

Coordinateurs :

o Laboratoire GéoAzur, UMR, UCA

- Audrey Galve, CR CNRS

o Laboratoire Ecomers, FRE, UCA

- Paolo Guidetti, PR UCA

o Laboratoire I3S, UMR7271, UCA

- Jerome Lebrun, CR CNRS

Production Scientifique :

Agenda Scientifique :

- Acceptation du Projet : 22 décembre 2018
- Signature du Projet : 9 janvier 2019

Valorisation :