Thesis Defense - The Non-Silent World
06.09.2023 at 09:30-11:00
Defenses
In the coming weeks, UW master's students will defend their theses. The subjects are varied and the students are from both master's programs, Coastal Marine Management and Coastal Communities and Regional Development. The defenses are accessible to everyone through zoom links but they are also open to the public, at the University Centre of the Westfjords in Ísafjörður.
Student: Mathieu Reverberi
Thesis title: The Non-Silent World: Acoustic Responses of White-beaked Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) to Changes in Maritime Traffic: A case study during the Covid-19 anthropause in Skjálfandi Bay, Iceland
Program: Coastal and Marine Management
The effects of anthropogenic noise on marine fauna remain understudied. Nevertheless, the worldwide spread of Covid-19 and the ensuing period of reduced human activity – named anthropause by scientists - created an opportunity for researchers to study the effects of decreased human-made noise on wildlife. Skjálfandi Bay in the northeast of Iceland is home to a large population of cetaceans. In this wide bay, whale-watching operations began in 1995 and continue to attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. In this thesis, changes in maritime traffic associated with the Covid-19 pandemic have been opportunistically quantified. The impact of vessels on the social behavior of white-beaked dolphins (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) were then investigated using acoustic recordings, visual observations, and Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel traffic data. A hydrophone was deployed over the summers of 2020 and 2022 in Skjálfandi Bay and were compared. Acoustic data from 2020 was added in order to listen to what happened in our oceans went quiet. This study found that white-beaked dolphins tend to whistle more, and therefore communicate more when human activity is reduced; whether it is during periods of low traffic (evening and night) or when global maritime traffic was disrupted in 2020. A better understanding of the anthropogenic impacts on marine fauna at a local scale can lead to better enforced and more effective regulations in Skjálfandi Bay, and also could serve as a basis for further studies. This research could also be used by local stakeholders to support the implementation of a marine protected area in Skjálfandi Bay.