Temporal and Spatial Mapping of Red Grouper emEpinephelus morio/em Sound Production

<p> The goals of this project were to determine the daily, seasonal and spatial patterns of red grouper <em> Epinephelus morio </em> sound production on the West Florida Shelf (WFS) using passive acoustics. An 11 month time series of acoustic data from fixed recorders deployed at a known <em> E. morio </em> aggregation site showed that <em> E. morio </em> produce sounds throughout the day and during all months of the year. Increased calling (number of files containing <em> E. morio </em> sound) was correlated to sunrise and sunset, and peaked in late summer (July and August) and early winter (November and December). Due to the ubiquitous production of sound, large&hyphen;scale spatial mapping across the WFS of <em> E. morio </em> sound production was feasible using recordings from shorter duration&hyphen;fixed location recorders and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). <em> Epinephelus morio </em> were primarily recorded in waters 15&ndash;93&thinsp;m deep, with increased sound production detected in hard bottom areas and within the Steamboat Lumps Marine Protected Area (Steamboat Lumps). AUV tracks through Steamboat Lumps, an offshore marine reserve where <em> E. morio </em> hole excavations have been previously mapped, showed that hydrophone&hyphen;integrated AUVs could accurately map the location of soniferous fish over spatial scales of &lt; 1&thinsp;km. The results show that passive acoustics is an effective, non&hyphen;invasive tool to map the distribution of this species over large spatial scales.</p>