June 16, 2015
Farallon Institute scientist Peter Davison, in collaboration with researchers at Scripps Institute of Oceanography and CSIRO (Australia), has published a paper describing methods for acoustic surveys of deep-sea fishes. Survey methods developed for larger, shallow-living fishes such as sardines cannot be directly applied to deep-sea fishes due to the combined effects of their small size, great abundance, species diversity, and pressure at depth. The deep-sea fish species present, their size distribution, and their depth of occupation must be estimated in order to accurately survey the biomass of these fishes using sonar data from surface ships. The new methods outlined in this significant research paper further our collective knowledge of how to study a difficult-to-access ecosystem and the important species that live there.