Fish Hum, Purr and Click Underwater -- and Now Machines Can Understand Them

Researchers used machine learning to identify and understand different fish calls. View in browser

Image credits: Shutterstock Fish Hum, Purr and Click Underwater -- and Now Machines Can Understand Them Researchers used machine learning to identify and understand different fish calls. Katharine Gammon, Contributor January 19, 2022       (Inside Science) -- As the sun rises over the island of American Samoa, a chorus of animal voices drifts upward. They're not the calls of birds, though -- the purrs, clicks and groans are coming from under the water. New research shows how automation can make it increasingly easy to eavesdrop on the fish making the sounds and uncover how their environment impacts them. Jill Munger first heard about fish that make sounds while she was an undergraduate student. A veteran researcher told her about marine acoustics. "She described it in this really cool way: I get to spy on critters in the ocean, without disturbing them," said Munger, currently a marine ecology researcher at Oregon State University. "When you're a diver you disturb the wildlife as you swim through, so you don't get to witness what they are doing when you're not there..." Read more Copyright 2022 American Institute of Physics. Inside Science syndicates its articles, columns, blogs and videos to news organizations. To initiate syndication, or request permission to republish our content (on a one-time or continuing basis), please contact Inside Science at insidescience@aip.org. News organizations seeking permission to republish Inside Science content must fully credit Inside Science as the original source of the content, include the author byline, and republish the original, unaltered form (excluding content titles, headlines, or sub-headlines). The reprint format can be seen here. Copyright conditions and usage terms are subject to change at any time without consent or any type of prior notice. To unsubscribe from all future mailings from Inside Science please click here. To manage your email subscriptions please click here.

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