Quantification of Boat Visitation Rates at Artificial and Natural Reefs in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico Using Acoustic Recorders.

ABSTRACT: Artificial reefs are commonly used as a management tool, in part to provide ecosystem services, including opportunities for recreational fishing and diving. Quantifying the use of artificial reefs by recreational boaters is essential for determining their value as ecosystem services. In this study, four artificial-natural reef pairs in the eastern Gulf of Mexico (off western Florida) were investigated for boat visitation rates using autonomous acoustic recorders. Digital SpectroGram (DSG) recorders were used to collect sound files from April 2013 to March 2015. An automatic detection algorithm was used to identify boat noise in individual files using the harmonic peaks generated by boat engines, and by comparing the sound amplitude of each file with surrounding files. In all four pairs, vi

SUBMITTER: Simard P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4976885 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature