Do fish have ears? What is the nature of underwater hearing and how does it differ from hearing in the air? If humans are the evolutionary descendants of ocean creatures, do we retain any fishy traces in the way we hear the world? And what about all the noise we humans make in our oceans? If we want to save the planet, do we need to learn to listen like the fishes once again? Today we explore these questions with Marine biologist and bioacoustics expert Dr. Sophie Nedelec.

Nedelec has a PhD in bioacoustics and behavioral ecology from the University of Bristol. She is a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow of the Royal Society and he's a senior research fellow at the University of Exeter. She researches underwater sound, sensory ecology, and human’s sonic impacts on the environment and sustainability.

Speaking of oceans, today marks a bit of a sea change here at Phantom Power: the addition of occasional “SOS” episodes on the Science of Sound with co-host Dr. Nathan Morehouse. Nate's an Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cincinnati, where he also serves as the Director of the Institute for Research in Sensing (IRiS), an interdisciplinary research institute focused on sensing, perception, and sensor technology development through adventurous integration of insights from the sciences, engineering, humanities, and arts.

Cited Media:

Sophie L. Nedelec et al. - "Particle Motion: The Missing Link in Underwater Acoustic Ecology" (2016)

Sophie L. Nedelec et al. - Motorboat noise impacts parental behaviour and offspring survival in a reef fish (2017)

Sophie L. Nedelec et al. - Hormonal and behavioural effects of motorboat noise on wild coral reef fish (2020)

Sophie L. Nedelec et al. - Soundscapes and living communities in coral reefs: temporal and spatial variation (2015)

Machine Listening (Sean Dockery, James Parker, Joel Stern) - Environments 12 (2023)

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
0:52 Meet the Guests
1:42 Introducing SOS Episodes
4:25 Do Fish Have Ears?
9:29 The Otolith Explained
12:44 The Lateral Line
26:29 Particle Motion: The Missing Link
34:57 Protecting Marine Life
36:58 Boat Speed & Noise
45:06 Reef Restoration with Sound
49:23 Noise Cancellation Underwater
54:52 Outro

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How to Listen Like a Fish with Marine Biologist Sophie Nedelec