Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago
Name & Surname: Ashlee Lillis
Abstract Title: Interviews with Fish: Ecoacoustic monitoring of reef habitats in East Africa
Author affiliations: Sound Ocean Science
Preferred Theme: Acoustic monitoring and Conservation
Abstract: Biodiverse near-shore habitats such as reefs can harbor high densities of sound-producing marine organisms, generating a rich and varied soundscape. Passive acoustic monitoring in coastal marine habitats such as coral reefs is a robust non-invasive technique that shows promise as a cost-effective, information-rich survey technology. Interest is rapidly growing for the use of such tools to measure reef biodiversity, investigate ecological change, detect key species (e.g., endangered, invasive, indicator), and subsequently inform management or intervention strategies. Still, the field of marine soundscape ecology is relatively young — recent acoustic data collection reveals tremendous spatiotemporal variability in near-shore soundscapes and a high rate of unknown sound sources, especially in understudied regions. It is clear that baseline and exploratory data collection & analysis is needed to enable accurate ecological interpretations and use of this emerging marine conservation tool. This presentation will describe challenges and opportunities in marine soundscape monitoring and highlight our current efforts to study reef soundscapes and identify key sound-producers, particularly in East Africa.
Name & Surname: Ashlee Lillis
Abstract Title: Interviews with Fish: Ecoacoustic monitoring of reef habitats in East Africa
Author affiliations: Sound Ocean Science
Preferred Theme: Acoustic monitoring and Conservation
Abstract: Biodiverse near-shore habitats such as reefs can harbor high densities of sound-producing marine organisms, generating a rich and varied soundscape. Passive acoustic monitoring in coastal marine habitats such as coral reefs is a robust non-invasive technique that shows promise as a cost-effective, information-rich survey technology. Interest is rapidly growing for the use of such tools to measure reef biodiversity, investigate ecological change, detect key species (e.g., endangered, invasive, indicator), and subsequently inform management or intervention strategies. Still, the field of marine soundscape ecology is relatively young — recent acoustic data collection reveals tremendous spatiotemporal variability in near-shore soundscapes and a high rate of unknown sound sources, especially in understudied regions. It is clear that baseline and exploratory data collection & analysis is needed to enable accurate ecological interpretations and use of this emerging marine conservation tool. This presentation will describe challenges and opportunities in marine soundscape monitoring and highlight our current efforts to study reef soundscapes and identify key sound-producers, particularly in East Africa.
