Acoustic monitoring of an ecologically relevant fish in florida BAY: toadfish as the canary in the coal mine programming supports a comprehensive network of cooperative study units to facilitate…

Acoustic monitoring of an ecologically relevant fish in florida BAY: toadfish as the canary in the coal mine programming supports a comprehensive network of cooperative study units to facilitate cooperative research, technical assistance, education, and training to inform science-based management of the national park system. The study units facilitate multi-disciplinary science and integrated information products across multiple geographic regions of the national park system. This project is to advance the use of toadfish choruses as a real-time indicator of ecological change, particularly as an early indicator of stress in these shallow-water seagrass based ecosystems. The goal is two-fold, first furthering the quality of the toadfish chorus detector itself and second, incorporating this detector into a field compatible data processing and delivery device. This research will lead to a publication on real-time passive acoustic detection methods in remote locations thereby, expanding the body of knowledge of the scientific community as well as, the publics knowledge of natural resources in the everglades and this area of science. Also, deployment of this new technology will aid estimation of toadfish populations in the ecosystem consequently supporting the longevity of this natural resource, which benefits recreation and public use. University staff and students will gain capacity in the technical field of passive acoustics for environmental monitoring purposes, advancing the state-of-the-art for this technical field.