'Grunts, growls and hums': B.C. researchers help compile online database of fish sounds

Some fish grunt, some growl, and some squeal. These fish noises — and many more — are part of a new database created by researchers who hope that cataloguing the sounds will allow for a better understanding of marine ecosystems and the health of aquatic life.

"The reality is that there are 34,000 species of fish in the world and we're learning very quickly that many of them are contributing to aquatic soundscapes," said Kieran Cox, one of the B.C.-based researchers behind FishSounds.net.

It's the first online database of its kind that makes public all known recordings of underwater fish sounds — more than 200 so far — including those related to mating, communicating, foraging or eating food.

Researchers behind the project say that having an open-source, free database of the noises fish make will make it easier to use sound to track where fish are and what they're up to. 

WATCH | Videos captured by researchers show some of the sounds fish make underwater

For instance, one species, the freshwater drum, which is considered an invasive species by some experts, makes a distinctive drum-like sound called a chorus. Cox says the fish could be tracked using underwater microphones to give a better sense of their movements. 

"Anyone who studies invasive species, knows that this is one of the primary challenges, tracing where they are, tracking their movement patterns to try to understand that," said Cox.

Cox, who completed his PhD at the University of Victoria last year and is now the Liber Ero and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at SFU, worked with other researchers in the U.S. and Brazil on the project.

They reviewed more than 3,000 documents and data from 834 studies in multiple languages from 1874 to 2020 to determine that 989 fish species produce active sounds such as hums, growls and grunts. There are thousands of species that have yet to be studied. 

The team then accessed federal funding to have Canada's Marine Environmental Research Infrastructure for Data Integration and Application Network (MERIDIAN) create the website so that the recorded sounds and scientific entries could be made available for free online.

Audrey Looby, who studies aquatic noise at the University of Florida and was part of the project, said having the sounds available to the public and other researchers will help scientists and citizens better understand aquatic landscapes.

"Because we can match fish sounds to fish species, their sounds are a kind of calling card that can tell us what kinds of fish are in an area and that can be very helpful monitoring environmental health," she said in a release from the University of Victoria.

For example, if a species is not making noises associated with its normal behaviour, then researchers might look for a stress in the environment affecting the species.

Several other studies over the past decade, including some Cox has been involved with, have shown that noise from human activities in marine environments can negatively affect marine life.