title: Mapping the Acoustic Soundscape off Vancouver Island Using the NEPTUNE Canada Ocean Observatory.
abstract: NEPTUNE Canada is a cabled ocean observatory system containing five nodes located in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Using passive acoustic data recorded at two nodes (Folger Passage Deep and Barkley Canyon Axis) between June 2010 and May 2011, we sought to quantify the levels of vessel traffic and the occurrence of biological sounds to determine the potential impact of anthropogenic sound in masking acoustic communication. The results from a comparison of the relative amplitude and occurrence of low-frequency biotic sounds to broadband sounds resulting from vessel traffic are presented. Additional contributions to the marine soundscape from self-generated instrument noise are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado at Boulder, 325 Broadway E/GC3, Boulder, CO, 80305, USA. carrie.bell@colorado.edu.|Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8N 1M5, Canada. carrie.bell@colorado.edu.
authors.forename: Carrie C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wall Bell
authors.affiliation: Marine Ecology and Technology Applications, Inc., Waquoit, MA, 02536, USA. rrountree@fishecology.org.
authors.forename: Rodney A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Rountree
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8N 1M5, Canada. juanes@uvic.ca.
authors.forename: Francis
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Juanes
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D002170:Canada; D062312:Islands; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D013016:Sound; D013018:Sound Spectrography
keywords: Anthropogenic noise; Marine soundscape; NEPTUNE Canada; Northeast Pacific; Passive acoustics