Programme: MUR JPI OCEANS – Underwater noise call
Project title: ecOsystem Responses to Constant offsHorE Sound specTRA
Acronym: ORCHESTRA
Role in the project: Partner
Duration: 01/02/2023 – 31/01/2026
Total budget: € 2.000.000
ISMAR budget: € 345.048
Web site: https://jpi-oceans.eu/en/orchestra
Key words: copepods, physical-biological interactions, underwater noise
Summary:
The dynamic of marine communities between and within ecosystems depend on responses to a multivariate set of changes such as climate warming and environmental pollution. The increase of anthropogenic underwater noise (AUN) through oil exploitation, ship traffic and the construction and operation of wind turbines alters the marine acoustic environment significantly and is now considered a global challenge. AUN can harm a variety of taxa by impairing an individual’s physiological, ethological, and fitness relevant behaviors. These behaviors include orientation, searching mates, anti-predator behavior and foraging. Benthic and planktonic invertebrates are playing a key role as a dynamic link between lower and higher trophic levels in the world’s oceans. However, data on the effects of AUN on these organisms are scarce but crucial for the implementation of mitigation strategies for GES. ORCHESTRA combines interdisciplinary expertise on plankton, benthos, fish and underwater acoustics from five Institutions of four countries. Together, we will fill the presented knowledge gaps by sampling and through laboratory and field experiments with a focus on behavioral and physiological/molecular changes on key species and on community effects. The experiments will be conducted in a multiple stressor, AUN and warming scenarios, approach. The AUN exposure in the laboratory (playbacks and simulations) and in the field (the real deal) is decided upon the current development in ship traffic and offshore wind farming. The resulting data will be combined with information on local soundscapes in order to produce maps of risks. In the end, our results should be implemented in strategies for the mitigation of AUN impacts on marine ecosystem key species and further contribute to the development of measures and criteria/indices to reach GES.
Contact person in ISMAR: alessandro.bergamasco@ismar.cnr.it
Partnership:
1. Institute of Marine Research (Germany)
2. Universitet Gent (Belgium)
3. Christian-Albrechts Universität zu Kiel (Germany)
4. Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy)
5. Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italy)
6. Alfred Wegener Institut Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung (Germany)
