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ABSTRACT
“The Silent World:” Dismissing the myth
Jaques Cousteau famously coined the underwater world “The Silent World,” he got this very wrong. If you take the time to listen the sea is filled with an underwater cacophony analogous to that heard in forests. Many marine animals, such as mammals, fish, and crustaceans, rely on sound for successful life history strategies, from mate selection and finding food to sound providing an orientation and settlement cues for habitat selection. Currently we have only scratched the surface regarding “who” relies on or produces sound.
However, since the industrial revolution human generated sound (anthrophony) has more than doubled the ambient background sound levels of the world’s oceans and coastal waterways. How anthrophony interferes with the natural biology and ecology of marine animals that rely on sound is a pressing issue worldwide, analogous to climate change and plastic pollution.
I use a multi-disciplinary approach, physics, physiology, and behaviour, to tackle some of these important questions. Here, I will describe some of the highlights through my academic journey to date.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
After watching the original top gun movie, like most boys he imagined, he always wanted to fly jets. Not like many others, after getting into the Airforce, he decided not to enlist, and ended up studying marine science at the University of Waikato, culminating with a PhD from the University of Auckland. In hindsight, Craig had spent many holidays as a kid in, on, or near the ocean, mainly with his grandfather on the Taranaki coast and owes his fascination and love for the ocean to him. Craig is a sensory ecologist who specialises in how marine animals hear and utilise sound. As an early career academic, he won several national and international prizes for his discoveries, and he continues today to push scientific boundaries to understand the effects of human generated sounds on marine animals.
Refreshments will be served in the basement foyer of building 303 (303-B00L2) from 6:00PM prior to the lecture.
