Algal Reef Soundscapes at Taoyuan, Taiwan

This dataset is an archive of audio data of algal reefs at Taoyuan, Taiwan.

Recording Locations

Taoyuan algal reefs extend for a maximum of 450 m from the shore, and the tidal range can reach to 4 m. Five recording sites were established at the intertidal zone: Baiyu (BY, N25.059° E121.089°), Datan (G1, N25.044° E121.057° and G2, N25.038° E121.051°), Yongxin (YX, N25.008° E121.026°), and Yongan (YA, N24.998° E121.020°). The reef at Baiyu is nearby an industrial park consisting of several chemical plants, factories, a paper mill and a sewage treatment facility. The area at Datan houses a number of factories as well as a power plant. This area is also the proposed location of a natural gas receiving terminal and an industrial harbor. The reefs at Yongxin and Yongan are located within the Guanxin Marine Protected Area.

Acoustic Recorders

SoundTrap 300STD recorders were used to collect underwater recordings. Two SoundTrap recorders were used in three surveys: SoundTrap 300STD #1 SN1208004643; SoundTrap 300STD #2 SN805347354.

Configuration of Audio Recording

(1) Duration: 5 min. (2) Sampling Rate: 96kHz. (3) Channels: 1. (4) File Format: SUD. (5) Audio Gain: High. (6) High Pass Filter: Off.

Field Deployment

Each SoundTrap recorder was fixed vertically on an angle steel at the bottom. The recorder was exposed in the air during low tide, so the collection of underwater recordings were only possible 3 hours before and after the high water.

Data Processing

Audio recordings generated by Soundtraps were saved in SUD format. The SUD format is a lossless compressed audio. To facilitate the data analysis, SUD files were transformed into WAV files by using the Soundtrap Host software (Ocean Instruments, NZ).

We used the LTSA_gui (https://github.com/schonkopf/long-term-spectrogram) to visualize the spectral-temporal change of long-duration recordings. By the median-based long-term spectrogram, we employed the periodicity-coded non-negative matrix factorization (https://github.com/schonkopf/soundscape-viewer) to separate the audio data into two components: (1) high-frequency biological chorus, and (2) low-frequency ambient noise. The relative intensities of the two components were analyzed.

Associated Publication

Joseph Heard, Wei-chen Tung, Yu-de Pei, Tzu-Hao Lin, Chien-Hsiang Lin, Tomonari Akamatsu, Colin KC Wen (2020) Coastal development threatens area supporting greatest fish diversity at Taoyuan Algal Reef, NW Taiwan. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 31(3), 590-604..

Data and Resources

Tags

Wikidata Keywords

  • Q1358257

Basic Information

Data Type
  • Audiovisual data
  • Scientific and statistical data formats
Language English (eng)

Spatio-temporal Information

Temporal Resolution Daily
Start Time 2018-05-17
End Time 2018-11-06
Spatial Coverage show more
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X.min 121.00118637084961
X.max 121.07500076293947
Y.min 24.989772812172564
Y.max 25.050749340454743

Management Information

Creator Tzu-Hao Lin, Colin K. C. Wen
Created Time 2019-05-02
Contact Person Tzu-Hao Lin
Contact Person Email schonkopf@gmail.com