A quantitative inventory of global soniferous fish diversity

Sound production in fishes is vital to an array of behaviors including territorial defense, reproduction, and competitive feeding. Unfortunately, recent passive acoustic monitoring efforts are revealing the extent to which anthropogenic forces are altering aquatic soundscapes. Despite the importance of fish sounds, extensive endeavors to document them, and the anthropogenic threats they face, the field of fish bioacoustics has been historically constrained by the lack of an easily accessible and comprehensive inventory of known soniferous fishes, as is available for other taxa. To create such an inventory while simultaneously assessing the geographic and taxonomic prevalence of soniferous fish diversity, we extracted information from 834 references from the years 1874-2020 to determine that 989 fish species from 133 families and 33 orders have been shown to produce active (i.e., intentional) sounds. Active fish sound production is geographically and taxonomically widespread-though not homogenous-among fishes, contributing a cacophony of biological sounds to the prevailing soundscape globally. Our inventory supports previous findings on the prevalence of actively soniferous fishes, while allowing novel species-level assessments of their distribution among regions and taxa. Furthermore, we evaluate commercial and management applications with passive acoustic monitoring, highlight the underrepresentation of research on passive (i.e., incidental) fish sounds in the literature, and quantify the limitations of current methodologies employed to examine fishes for sound production. Collectively, our review expands on previous studies while providing the foundation needed to examine the 96% of fish species that still lack published examinations of sound production.

Automated summary

Sound production in fishes is crucial for various behaviors, but anthropogenic activities have been altering aquatic soundscapes. The field of fish bioacoustics has been constrained by the lack of a comprehensive inventory of soniferous fishes. This study provides such an inventory and assesses the diversity and distribution of soniferous fish species, while highlighting the underrepresentation of research on passive fish sounds.