Estimating the spatial distribution of vocalizing animals from ambient sound spectra using widely spaced recorder arrays and inverse modelling

Menze S, Paranhos Zitterbart D, Biuw M, Boebel O (2019)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Acoustical Society of America

Book Volume: 146

Pages Range: 4699-4717

Journal Issue: 6

DOI: 10.1121/1.5139406

Abstract

The sound energy from marine mammal populations vocalizing over extended periods of time adds up to quasi-continuous "choruses," which create characteristic peaks in marine sound spectra. An approach to estimate animal distribution is presented, which uses chorus recordings from very sparse unsynchronized arrays in ocean areas that are too large or remote to survey with traditional methods. To solve this under-determined inverse problem, simulated annealing is used to estimate the distribution of vocalizing animals on a geodesic grid. This includes calculating a transmission loss (TL) matrix, which connects all grid nodes and recorders. Geometrical spreading and the ray trace model BELLHOP [Porter (1987). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82(4), 1349-1359] were implemented. The robustness of the proposed method was tested with simulated marine mammal distributions in the Atlantic sector of the Southern Ocean using both drifting acoustic recorders [Argo (2018). SEANOE] and a moored array as acoustic receivers. The results show that inversion accuracy mainly depends on the number and location of the recorders, and can be predicted using the entropy and range of the estimated source distributions. Tests with different TL models indicated that inversion accuracy is affected only slightly by inevitable inaccuracies in TL models. The presented method could also be applied to bird, crustacean, and insect choruses.

Authors with CRIS profile

Daniel Paranhos Zitterbart Lehrstuhl für Biophysik

Involved external institutions

Havforskningsinstituttet NO Norway (NO) Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWI) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Menze, S., Paranhos Zitterbart, D., Biuw, M., & Boebel, O. (2019). Estimating the spatial distribution of vocalizing animals from ambient sound spectra using widely spaced recorder arrays and inverse modelling. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 146(6), 4699-4717. https://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.5139406

MLA:

Menze, Sebastian, et al. "Estimating the spatial distribution of vocalizing animals from ambient sound spectra using widely spaced recorder arrays and inverse modelling." Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 146.6 (2019): 4699-4717.

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