Achievement

Adrienne Hopson conducted a pilot study to measure underwater sound transmission in wetland mesocosms. At each site, an AQ339 underwater speaker (Lubell, Inc., Columbus, OH) was suspended and sound files of a variety of frequencies were played. She used an H2a-XLR hydrophone to measure and record sound at distances of 1 m, 8 m and 15 m.. She compared sound intensity and frequency of the recorded sounds with the Songscope program. Transmission of audible signals was much lower in mesocosms with dense algae than without algae suggesting that vegetation may alter insect communication. Also anthropogenic sounds were detectable below the water surface. She was not able to identify which sounds were caused by specific insect taxa, because there are no sound libraries taxa and few published papers on aquatic insect sounds. Adrienne presented her results at the annual EARS IGERT spring meeting in Oxford, OH and will conduct future research to examine sounds of specific taxa.