Fish Sound Production Research: Historical Practices and Ongoing Challenges

Even with widespread evidence of the ecological importance of fish sounds for signaling and communication, and an increasing awareness of the negative impacts of anthropogenic sound, research into fish sound production still faces ongoing challenges limiting growth. To acquire quantitative data on research into fish sounds and assess topics related to their study, a systematized review was conducted to survey over 3000 references for published examinations of sound production by fish species. Additional information was further extracted on the study of marine, subtropical species from a subset of the assembled references. The review findings showed that the rate of soniferous fish species discovery remains inefficient for understanding even a sizeable portion of the behaviors of the 34900 extant fish species known to exist. In the literature surveyed, there was also no standardized sound nomenclature, fish species were not frequently tested in multiple environments, and sound visualizations were inconsistently provided. Advancements in these areas would improve the ability to document, describe, and synthesize fish sounds, which would in turn increase understanding of their global scope and the anthropogenic threats that they face.