Talk:Bioacoustics

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"Bioacoustics is the study of how animals, use sound for communication and echolocation." Does bioacoustics not also include the way animals use sound to monitor their environment generally, i.e. topics such as predator/prey detection and sound localization outside of echolocation? --Chinasaur 09:18, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * They do, fish do as well. Should be added.


 * I'd like to note that I can hear bats sounds as they fly using sonar to find bugs. It's a high frequency. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.169.65.6 (talk) 02:11, 13 June 2007


 * No you don't. You probably hear their social calls, with significantly lower frequency than that used for echolocation. Back to topic, I don't think using sonar for estimating fish biomass falls under bioacoustics and should be removed from this article. A complete rewrite would also be nice, but that's another matter. --Yerpo 09:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The article deserves its 'cleanup' banner, so I agree it could do with a rewrite. Re biomass estimation, I believe this falls well within the scope of bioacoustics.  I've just revised the definition to make it clear why.  See if you agree with me. Thunderbird2 15:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Makes sense, but a source would be nice (my field is insect bioacoustics, so I haven't heard of this usage). --Yerpo 09:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
 * OK. I'll add something over the weekend. Thunderbird2 15:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've added a couple of references and tidied up the structure slightly, but there are still big gaps (there's nothing at all under the heading "terrestrial bioacoustics". Is that the correct term?) Thunderbird2 12:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks OK now. As for the structure, I'd reorganize the whole thing. First of all, I think that animal sounds could be put in a separate article, only an overview with the link would remain here to illustrate the scope of bioacoustics. I'm preparing a text on "methods in bioacoustics", and underwater bioacoustics as it stands now could be placed somewhere within that. Give me a couple of days, I'll see what I can do. BTW, the references in the text on Biomass estimation don't make much sense because they aren't written in full at the bottom. Could you look into that? And I found some strange text here. Looks like a WP article on SONAR with the added section on underwater bioacoustics and some random popular words between. Don't know what to make out of it. --Yerpo 18:07, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I fixed the references. Some of the material you refer to could go to whale song, or to articles on each individual whale.  But there is also a need for material on whale hearing and fish (many species make sounds and some have sharp hearing too).  Finally, there should be something on characterisation of living organisms.  The idea is to look at a sonar echo (as with biomass estimation) and work out what kind of animal it must have reflected from. (light doesn't travel far in water so you have to make do with sound instead).  I would call this acoustical oceanography. If you're looking for a good general purpose page on the subject I recommend Discovery of Sound in the Sea. There are also some useful links in underwater acoustics. Thunderbird2 20:01, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Some of the material I refer to is already in the Whale song article, I see. With references that make no sense I meant this paragraph (and the one after that):
 * Vertical, or down-looking sonar has become increasingly important to the assessment of marine fish, anadromous and land-locked salmonids (Thorne 1971, 1979; Burczynski and Johnson 1986; Mulligan and Kieser 1986; Levy et al. 1991; Yule 1992; Parkinson et al. 1994; Beauchamp et al. 1997; Wanzenbock et al. 2003), and lake and reservoir fishes (Thorne 1983; Brandt et al. 1991; Degan and Wilson 1995; Vondracek and Degan 1995; Schael et al. 1995; Cyterski et al. 2003; Taylor et al. 2005).
 * The characterisation of living organisms could be mentioned in a single sentence and the link pointing at the relevant article. There's no need to have everything in more than one article, IMO. --Yerpo 06:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * oh, those ones. I put that section here while tidying up the sonar page, as it didn't seem to belong there, but I am not familiar with the references.  I checked the page history to see where they came from originally.  They were added (to sonar) by Bmcclure on 6 May 2006. I agree it makes no sense to duplicate things, but try not to lose anything either.  I look forward to seeing the results of your efforts. Thunderbird2 09:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Note (respectfully): Bioacoustics applies to animal-generated acoustics and not to the use of sonar generated by humans for detection and assessment of "fish", per the intro in BIOACOUSTICS "In underwater acoustics and fisheries acoustics the term is also used to mean the effect of plants and animals on sound propagated underwater, usually in reference to the use of sonar technology for biomass estimation". Having worked in hydroacoustics for fish detection (and substrate classification, and bathymetry, and submerged vegetation assessment for 20+ years) - almost never heard anyone apply 'bioacoustics' - 'hydroacoustics' is the most common terminology used for underwater habitat and fish assessment. Bmcclure 22 December 2008  —Preceding undated comment was added at 21:45, 22 December 2008 (UTC).


 * Neither did I, but the two sources cited apparently use the term for biomass assessment as well. Do you have access to those books to verify? If they don't, or if they've been misquoted, then I would fully support moving the related content to the article on hydroacoustics. --Yerpo (talk) 07:44, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I feel the wording is justified by the use of "bioacoustics" by Medwin H. & Clay C.S. (1998). In their book they use this term to mean sound scattered by fish and zooplankton (I see no mention in that book of the sounds made by fish). (See p348 ff). I don’t have Simmonds J. & MacLennan D. (2005) to hand, but I think they use the word in much the same way.  The article would be incomplete if it did not mention this use. Thunderbird2 (talk) 13:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

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