The essential navigation cue for young reef fishes
to find their way home

Stephen D. Simpson
University of Edinburgh

Coral reef fishes live in dangerous times due to
overfishing and habitat degradation. But to sustainably
exploit fisheries or conserve populations, we need to
understand the fish. In particular, we need to
understand what happens during the oceanic stage of
their life, when they develop as larvae. A few lucky
survivors make it back to the reef, grow into adults and
produce offspring. Most don’t.
We have now realised that luck is not the whole story.
When most reef fishes are ready to recruit to reefs, they
can swim far in excess of local currents for days on
end. But for this ability to be of any use, the larvae must
be able to interpret their environment.
Coral reefs are extremely noisy environments, with the
crackle of snapping shrimps and the chatter of fish set
against a backdrop of wind, rain and surf. Sound
carries well underwater, and fish have great hearing.
My work uses several complementary approaches to
explore whether larval coral reef fishes can use the
‘soundscape’ to their advantage, and help tilt the
balance in their favour, to find their way home.

Completo en pdf:
http://cognition.icapb.ed.ac.uk/resources/random/steveposter.pdf
.