Matthew K. Pine

University of Victoria | UVIC · Department of Biology

From midnight of 26 March 2020, New Zealand became one of the first countries to enter a strict lockdown to combat the spread of COVID‐19. The lockdown banned all non‐essential services and travel both on land and sea. Overnight, the country’s busiest coastal waterway, the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park, became devoid of almost all recreational and non‐e...

Masking is often assessed by quantifying changes, due to increasing noise, to an animal's communication or listening range. While the methods used to measure communication or listening ranges are functionally similar if used for vocalizations, they differ in their approaches: communication range is focused on the sender's call, while the listening...

Given the common physical overlapping between coastal developments and important marine mammal habitats, there is a need to identify potentially important foraging grounds for dolphins when informing marine spatial planning and management of underwater noise. Hydrophones were deployed at four locations either side of the mainland China-Hong Kong Sp...

It is now widely accepted that a shift towards renewable energy production is needed in order to avoid further anthropogenically induced climate change. The ocean provides a largely untapped source of renewable energy. As a result, harvesting electrical power from the wind and tides has sparked immense government and commercial interest but with re...

Anthropogenic stressors, such as plastics and fishing, are putting coastal habitats under immense pressure. However, sound pollution from small boats has received little attention given the importance of sound in the various life history strategies of many marine animals. By combining passive acoustic monitoring, propagation modelling, and hearing...

Once an important cetacean habitat, the Miaodao Archipelago has been altered by human-induced disturbances over several decades. While cetacean diversity is known to have decreased, no recent data on species diversity around Miaodao are known to exist. Capitalizing on the high vocal activity of cetaceans, three passive acoustic surveys, including t...

The associations between feeding activities and environmental variables inform animal feeding tactics that maximize energetic gains by minimizing energy costs while maximizing feeding success. Relevant studies in aquatic animals, particularly marine mammals, are scarce due to difficulties in the observation of feeding behaviors in aquatic environme...

Sound from small recreational boats spans a wide range of frequencies and source levels, but the degree to which this impacts the soundscapes of shallow coastal habitats is poorly understood. Here, long-term passive acoustic recordings at five shallow coastal sites, including two MPAs, were used to quantify spatio-temporal variation in small boat s...

The first tidal turbine arrays have now been installed as the world strives to reach net zero carbon targets by 2050. Underwater noise emissions from single tidal turbine devices have caused some environmental concern in the past and therefore determining levels of noise emitted from these structures has become a crucial component of the consenting...

The global lockdown to mitigate COVID-19 pandemic health risks has altered human interactions with nature. Here, we report immediate impacts of changes in human activities on wildlife and environmental threats during the early lockdown months of 2020, based on 877 qualitative reports and 332 quantitative assessments from 89 different studies. Hundr...

The Arctic has been a refuge from anthropogenic underwater noise; however, climate change has caused summer sea ice to diminish, allowing for unprecedented access and the potential for increased underwater noise. Baseline underwater sound levels must be quantified to monitor future changes and manage underwater noise in the Arctic. We analyzed 39 p...

Monitoring coral reefs is vital to the conservation of these at-risk ecosystems. While most current monitoring methods are costly and time-intensive, passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) could provide a cost-effective, large scale reef monitoring tool. However, for PAM to be reliable, the results must be field tested to ensure that the acoustic method...

Biofouling accumulation is not proactively managed on most marine static artificial structures (SAS) due to the lack of effective options presently available. We describe a series of laboratory and field trials that examine the efficacy of continuous bubble streams in maintaining SAS free of macroscopic biofouling and demonstrate that this treatmen...

Sea ice loss associated with a changing climate is resulting in increased levels of ship traffic in the Arctic, which in turn is causing increased underwater noise levels and associated impacts on marine life. Estimating the possible, present levels of exposure of marine life to underwater noise is a crucial step in understanding and managing conte...

Underwater noise pollution is a recognized threat to marine life. In British Columbia, Canada, Pacific rockfish (Sebastes spp.) were historically overfished, prompting the establishment of Rockfish Conservation Areas (RCAs). However, there are no restrictions prohibiting vessel transits in RCAs. We hypothesized that RCAs do not protect rockfish fro...

Little effort has been made to conserve the East Asian finless porpoise, which is hindered by a lack of robust baseline data on their population status and threats. We conducted a local ecological knowledge survey around south Bohai Sea to collect information about the spatio-temporal distribution, population trends, and threats to East Asian finle...

The soundscape is a crucial habitat feature for marine mammals. This study investigates the contribution of bearded seal vocalizations to the soundscape in the western Canadian Arctic, and also the vocal characteristics of bearded seals relative to sea ice conditions. Passive acoustic data were recorded near Sachs Harbour between August 2015 and Ju...

• The estuaries within the Pearl River Delta are sites for large‐scale urban development and offshore construction. These projects have conservation stakeholders calling for more protection for the Indo‐Pacific humpback dolphins whose habitat overlaps with current and proposed construction sites. • Efforts to improve impact assessments are hindered...

NOTE: This is the abstract of a conference presentation. There is no article. I have uploaded the video of the presentation as a supplemental file here. In the Arctic, sound levels have historically been strongly tied to sea ice and wind speed, with very little impact of anthropogenic noise. However, climate change is causing a loss of sea ice, an...

The sounds of Arctic marine fishes recorded in situ have been largely ignored in the literature, despite the successful application of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) for mapping the presence of fishes at lower latitudes. Polar cod, Boreogadus saida, is a known soniferous species that holds keystone status in the Arctic and for which PAM could be...

Large commercial vessel traffic is expected to continue growing over the next decades, making marine habitats noisier. This additional vessel noise could prevent the recovery of endangered marine species and populations and become a threat to others. Spatially constricted areas are places where both maritime traffic and species can concentrate, inc...

Underwater noise is an important issue globally. Underwater noise can cause auditory masking, behavioural disturbance, hearing damage, and even death for marine animals. While underwater noise levels have been increasing in non-polar regions, noise levels are thought to be much lower in the Arctic where the presence of sea ice limits anthropogenic...

The soundscape is an important habitat feature for marine animals, and climate change may cause large changes to the Arctic marine soundscape through sea ice loss and increased anthropogenic activity. We examined the marine soundscape over eight months near Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada, and assessed the relative contribution of the geo...

Fish mortality through floodplain pumping stations is a recognised global issue, but few studies have quantified the degree of mortality that occurs during pumping. We investigated the potential of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) as a tool to record sounds made by fish and their likely mortality as they passed through pumps during downstream migr...

The deployment of tidal energy arrays is gaining momentum to provide marine renewable energy (MRE) to the global market. However, there are concerns over the potential impacts underwater noise emissions from operational devices may have on marine fauna. Auditory masking (the interference of important biological signals by anthropogenic noise) is a...

The Arctic marine environment is changing rapidly through a combination of sea ice loss and increased anthropogenic activity. Given these changes can affect marine animals in a variety of ways, understanding the spatial and temporal distributions of Arctic marine animals is imperative. We use passive acoustic monitoring to examine the presence of m...

This paper presents the first noise measurements of a quarter-scale subsea tidal kite (anchored to the sea floor by a tether and flying in a figure-of-eight configuration in the water column) operating in field conditions. Challenges in the measurement and post-processing of the data are detailed. Results are presented for three operating condition...

The soundscape is an integral habitat component for acoustically-sensitive animals. In marine environments noise pollution from anthropogenic activities is pervasive, potentially leading to negative consequences for marine animals. To understand the impacts of noise pollution, one must first understand the soundscape in which these animals live. Us...

Noise from this shipping traffic can lead to acoustic masking, reducing the ability of marine animals to detect and use biologically important sounds. Vessel-slow down may be an alternative mitigation option in regions where re-routing shipping corridors to avoid important habitat for fish and marine mammals is not possible. We investigated the pot...

Many structured biogenic habitats are biodiversity hotspots and thus possess unique soundscapes largely driven by the biophony. To date, the vast majority of research has focused on shallow-water biogenic habitats such as coral or oyster reefs. Glass sponge reefs are a deep-water habitat analogous in many ways to shallow-water coral reefs. These re...

Vessel slowdown may be an alternative mitigation option in regions where re-routing shipping corridors to avoid important marine mammal habitat is not possible. We investigated the potential relief in masking in marine mammals and fish from a 10 knot speed reduction of container and cruise ships. The mitigation effect from slower vessels was not eq...

Several cetacean species have demonstrated epimeletic behavior that relies on the tight social bonds between conspecifics. These ehaviors and the corresponding vocalizations were recorded during a rare encounter with a group of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis) that included a presumed mother and deceased calf, in Sanniang Bay, Chin...

Structured biogenic habitats are biodiversity hotspots that host a wide range of soniferous species. Yet in deep-water systems, their soundscapes are largely undescribed. In September of 2016 we deployed 3 underwater acoustic recorders for approximately 4 d in and around a glass sponge reef in the Outer Gulf Islands sponge reef fishing closure, Bri...

Sounds produced by Arctic cod were recorded for the first time and suggest passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) can be an effective additional tool for the study and management of the species. Each of the 38 calls detected in three different aquatic facilities consisted of a single grunt with 6 to 12 pulses and a mean duration of 289 ms. Call frequenc...

Given the common physical overlapping between coastal developments and important marine mammal habitats, there is a need to identify potentially important foraging grounds for dolphins when informing marine spatial planning and management of underwater noise. Hydrophones were deployed at four locations either side of the mainland China–Hong Kong Sp...

As the Arctic warms and sea ice decreases, increased shipping will lead to higher ambient noise levels in the Arctic Ocean. Arctic marine mammals are vulnerable to increased noise because they use sound to survive and likely evolved in a relatively quiet soundscape. We model vessel noise propagation in the proposed western Canadian Arctic shipping...

While the transmission beam of odontocetes has been described in a number of studies, the majority of them that have measured the transmission beam in two dimensions were focused on captive animals. Within the current study, a dedicated cross hydrophone array with nine elements was used to investigate the echolocation transmission beam of free-rang...

Shifts in habitat use and distribution patterns in dolphins are often concerns that can result from habitat degradation. We investigated how potential changes to a habitat from human activity may alter dolphin distributions within Lingding Bay in the Pearl River Estuary, China, by studying the relationship between fish choruses, vessel presence and...

Home to the world's largest population of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, Sousa chinensis, the Pearl River Estuary in China is the one of the world's busiest embayments for vessel traffic. Quantitative studies on the potential impact of rising ambient noise levels on the habitat use of dolphins in this estuary are lacking. We investigated the relat...

Home to the world's largest population of Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, Sousa chinensis, the Pearl River Estuary in China is the one of the world?s busiest embayments for vessel traffic. Quantitative studies on the potential impact of rising ambient noise levels on the habitat use of dolphins in this estuary are lacking. We investigated the relat...

With underwater sound levels rising due to increasing vessel activity, there is a pressing need to better understand the potential distances for which masking impacts on acoustically sensitive marine life may occur, especially in embayments with shipping activity. Given the known detrimental noise impacts on the marine environment, managing underwa...

The development of marine tidal turbines has advanced at a rapid rate over the last decade but with little detailed understanding of the potential noise impacts on invertebrates. Previous research has shown that underwater reef noise plays an important role in mediating metamorphosis in many larval crabs and fishes. New research suggests that under...

The clicks of Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis) from 7 individuals in the tank of Baiji aquarium, 2 individuals in a netted pen at Shishou Tian-e-zhou Reserve and 4 free-ranging individuals at Tianxingzhou were recorded using a broad-band digital recording system with four element hydrophones. The peak-to-peak...

With considerable commercial interest in renewable energy production in estuarine environments, there is a critical need to better understand ambient sound from these habitats. This study investigated the ambient sound from two sites of differing habitats within the Kaipara Harbour, a site previously allocated for tidal turbine development. Analyse...

Section 16 of the Resource Management Act (RMA) requires the best practicable option to be adopted to ensure that noise does not exceed a reasonable level. This duty applies to all occupiers of land including those on or under a water body. However, what is a reasonable level of noise under the sea and how can it be quantified? With a growing numbe...

Underwater anthropogenic sound levels in the ocean are increasing, and the evidence for impacts of sound on marine life is overwhelming. Currently, regulatory bodies require emitted sound from marine renewable energy projects to be assessed in order to infer potential impacts on marine life. Geometric spreading models are sometimes used to assess l...

A cacophony of sound so loud it doesn't allow for concentration on daily tasks: this is the reality for many marine creatures, with deafening human-generated sound pollution stirring up our coastal waters more and more every decade. As marine scientists report, planning needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.