Acoustic Complexity of vocal fish communities: a field and controlled validation
Open accessAbstract
The Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI) is increasingly applied to the study of biodiversity in aquatic habitats. However, it remains unknown which types of acoustic information are highlighted by this index in underwater environments. This study explored the robustness of the ACI to fine variations in fish sound abundance (i.e. number of sounds) and sound diversity (i.e. number of sound types) in field recordings and controlled experiments. The ACI was found to be sensitive to variations in both sound abundance and sound diversity, making it difficult to discern between these variables. Furthermore, the ACI was strongly dependent on the settings used for its calculation (i.e. frequency and temporal resolution of the ACI algorithm, amplitude filter). Care should thus be taken when comparing ACI absolute values between studies, or between sites with site-specific characteristics (e.g. species diversity, fish vocal community composition). As the use of ecoacoustic indices presents a promising tool for the monitoring of vulnerable environments, methodological validations like those presented in this paper are of paramount importance in understanding which biologically important information can be gathered by applying acoustic indices to Passive Acoustic Monitoring data.
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Meta-analyses consistently show that acoustic indices correlate only moderately with traditional biodiversity metrics (r ≈ 0.33) and can behave unpredictably across habitats, taxa, and microphone setups.
“Meta-analyses consistently show that they correlate only moderately with traditional biodiversity metrics (r ≈ 0.33) and can behave unpredictably across habitats, taxa, and even different microphone setups”
From Listening forward: emerging roles of bioacoustics in ecology, evolution, and conservation (2026) · cites this paper as Bolgan et al. 2018
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References 53 · Cited by 70
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- [17]Farina, A. & Morri, D. Source-sink e eco-field: ipotesi ed evidenze sperimentali. Atti del X congresso nazionale della SIEP-IALE. Ecologia e governance del paesaggio: esperienze e prospettive [Source-sink e eco-field: hypothesis and experimental evidence. Proceedings of the X national meeting of SIEP-IALE. Ecology and landscape governance: experiences and perspective]. Bari; p. 365–372 (2008).
- [47]Bonacito, C. et al. Acoustical and temporal features of sounds of Sciaena umbra (Sciaenidae) in the Miramare Marine Reserve (Gulf of Trieste, Italy). In: Proceedings of XVIII IBAC, International Bioacoustics Council Meeting, Cogne (2001).
- Authors
- Bolgan, M., Amorim, M. C. P., Fonseca, P. J., Di Iorio, L., & Parmentier, E.
- Affiliations
- University of Liège (BE)
- University of Lisbon (PT)
- Corresponding author
- Bolgan, Marta
- Venue
- Scientific Reports
- Published
- 2018-07-12
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 10559-10559
- ISSN
- 2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6043554
- OpenAlex
- W2845109224
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 4
- FWCI
- 6.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Flanders Marine Institute (Flanders Marine Institute) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ORBi (University of Liège) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- BeIPD- Marie-Curie COFUND postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Liège
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Marine animal studies overview
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Oceanography › Underwater Acoustics Research
- Keywords
- acoustic complexity index, underwater bioacoustics, passive acoustic monitoring, index validation, temporal resolution, biodiversity monitoring, fish sounds
- MeSH terms
- Acoustics, Algorithms, Animals, Environmental Monitoring, Female, Fishes, Male, Sex Factors, Vocalization, Animal, Biodiversity
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