Automated acoustic tracking of aquatic animals: scales, design and deployment of listening station arrays

TLDR

Low‑cost, moored acoustic receivers now enable tracking of marine organisms across scales from hundreds of metres to hundreds of kilometres, offering valuable insights into movement patterns while presenting unique limitations and immature data‑management techniques. The study reviews design, applications, advantages, limitations, and data‑management challenges of acoustic receiver arrays, drawing on examples from past and current literature to illustrate potential analysis techniques.

Abstract

The recent introduction of low-cost, moored data-logging acoustic receivers has provided opportunities for tracking marine organisms over small (hundreds of metres) and large scales (hundreds of kilometres). Acoustic receivers have been deployed in many different environments to examine specific hypotheses regarding the movement of aquatic species. This technology provides many advantages for studying aquatic animal movement patterns, but also has limitations and provides unique difficulties for users. Study design, applications, advantages and limitations are discussed with examples from past and current studies. Data management and analysis techniques are in their infancy and few standardised techniques exist. Complications with data management and potential data analysis techniques are discussed. Examples from the literature are utilised wherever possible to provide useful references.