Sofie Van Parijs

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration | NOAA · Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, MA

Passive acoustic monitoring is an essential tool for studying beaked whale populations. This approach can monitor elusive and pelagic species, but the volume of data it generates has overwhelmed researchers’ ability to quantify species occurrence for effective conservation and management efforts. Automation of data processing is crucial, and machin...

Protected areas are typically managed as a network of sites exposed to varying anthropogenic conditions. Managing these networks benefits from monitoring of conditions across sites to help prioritize coordinated efforts. Monitoring marine vessel activity and related underwater radiated noise impacts across a network of protected areas, like the U.S...

Marine vessels support diverse ocean economic sectors. As society works towards a sustainable ocean economy, a variety of vessel initiatives are emerging. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) offers a method to evaluate these initiatives. Here we review efforts related to vessel noise management in marine protected areas (MPA) and benefits of vessel s...

Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) data collection has been growing exponentially, resulting in petabytes of data that document ocean soundscapes, how they change over time, and what animals use these ecosystems at varying timescales. Efficiently extracting this critical information and comparing it to other datasets in the context of ecosystem-base...

Construction in the southern New England wind energy area (WEA), a large-scale offshore wind farm on the east coast of the United States, started in June 2023. Baseline data was collected from 2020 to 2022, with six passive acoustic recorders (SoundTraps) deployed at shallow (<60 m) sites in the vicinity of Nantucket Shoals and Cox’s Ledge. Data we...

Offshore wind energy is rapidly developing in US waters, with construction underway off Southern New England (SNE), an important region for many species, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW). A data-driven understanding of NARW upcalling behaviour is presented here to help establish proper monitoring protocols for m...

Passive acoustic monitoring of the global ocean has increased dramatically over the last decade, providing insights into seasonal sea ice and wind/wave variability, biodiversity, geophysical hazards, and anthropogenic noise impacts. All of these phenomena are sentinels of marine ecosystem health and ocean climate change. Recognizing the utility of...

Offshore wind energy is set to develop rapidly in waters off the east coast of the United States. There is considerable overlap between areas proposed for offshore wind development and harbour porpoise habitats in the Gulf of Maine (GOM) and Southern New England waters. Baseline data on the occurrence and foraging activity of porpoises was collecte...

Atlantic cod, which produce sounds associated with courtship behaviors and are overfished in the US, are potentially vulnerable to disturbance from offshore wind energy (OWE) construction and operation during their spawning period. We used a combination of fixed-station and glider-based passive acoustic monitoring methods to evaluate the spatiotemp...

Haddock (Melanogrammus aeglefinus) are important commercial resources in the western North Atlantic. Their distribution ranges from Newfoundland to North Carolina and are most abundant on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine. Over the course of a decade, the Gulf of Maine warmed faster than 99% of the global ocean and these changes are likely to i...

Evaluating potential impacts on marine animals or increased sound levels resulting from offshore wind energy construction requires the establishment of baseline data records from which to draw inference. This study provides 2 years of baseline data on cetacean species’ presence, vessel activity, and ambient sound levels in the southern New England...

Building on earlier work identifying Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) for cetaceans in U.S. waters (BIA I), we describe the methodology and structured expert elicitation principles used in the “BIA II” effort to update existing BIAs, identify and delineate new BIAs, and score BIAs for 25 cetacean species, stocks, or populations in seven U.S. reg...

Atlantic Cod Gadus morhua, which are overfished in the United States, are potentially vulnerable to disturbance from offshore wind energy (OWE) construction and operation during their spawning period. While many aspects of Atlantic Cod biology are well studied, little is known of their habitat use and spawning behavior at the extreme southern exten...

No PDF available ABSTRACT Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an efficient method for large-scale marine mammal monitoring. PAM technologies concurrently sample multiple soniferous marine mammal species, and when coupled with verified detectors, provide information that can be used to evaluate community composition. This analysis used data collec...

The United States of America’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) hosts 15 National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) and two Monuments in its waters. Charismatic marine megafauna, such as fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus), humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), and various delphinid species frequent these areas, but little is known about thei...

Sperm whales are an ideal species to study using passive acoustic technology because they spend the majority of their time underwater and produce echolocation clicks almost continuously while foraging. Passive acoustic line transect data collected between June and August 2016 were used to estimate a depth-corrected acoustic abundance and study the...

No PDF available ABSTRACT Offshore wind energy development is rapidly advancing in United States waters to meet state and federal renewable energy goals. With a diverse suite of endangered large whale species and a multitude of other protected marine species inhabiting these same waters, understanding the potential consequences of construction and...

Chronic low-frequency noise from commercial shipping is a worldwide threat to marine animals that rely on sound for essential life functions. Although the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recognizes the potential negative impacts of shipping noise in marine environments, there are currently no standard metrics to monitor and qua...

Soundscape analyses provide an integrative approach to studying the presence and complexity of sounds within long-term acoustic data sets. Acoustic metrics (AMs) have been used extensively to describe terrestrial habitats but have had mixed success in the marine environment. Novel approaches are needed to be able to deal with the added noise and co...

Offshore wind energy development is rapidly ramping up in United States (U.S.) waters in order to meet renewable energy goals. With a diverse suite of endangered large whale species and a multitude of other protected marine species frequenting these same waters, understanding the potential consequences of construction and operation activities is es...

Soundscapes offer rich descriptions of composite acoustic environments. Characterizing marine soundscapes simply through sound levels results in incomplete descriptions, limits the understanding of unique features, and impedes meaningful comparisons. Sources that contribute to sound level metrics shift in time and space with changes in biological p...

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries manages a system of marine protected areas encompassing more than 2,000,000 km². U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) have been designated to provide protection for their conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, scientific, cultural, archae...

Soundscapes represent an intrinsic aspect of a habitat which, particularly in protected areas, should be monitored and managed to mitigate human impacts. Soundscape ecology characterizes acoustic interactions within an environment, integrating biological, anthropogenic, climatological, and geological sound sources. Monitoring soundscapes in marine...

Within a soundscape, anthropogenic sound often dominates frequency ranges used by various species, leading to signal overlap and potential communication masking. The acoustic niche hypothesis predicts species will avoid competition by vocalizing at unique bandwidths. To evaluate the extent of anthropogenic overlap, it’s helpful to understand acoust...

Mitigation of threats posed to marine mammals by human activities can be greatly improved with a better understanding of animal occurrence in real time. Recent advancements have enabled low-power passive acoustic systems to be integrated into long-endurance autonomous platforms for persistent near real-time monitoring of marine mammals via the soun...

Many studies use acoustic telemetry to monitor marine animals at a local level to answer specific questions (i.e., swim speeds or mortality bottlenecks). It can be difficult to collect data for migratory species that exhibit extensive movements covering broad spatial distributions outside “home arrays” for 2 reasons: the cost of offshore deployment...

Passive acoustic monitoring of ocean soundscapes can provide information on ecosystem status for those tasked with protecting marine resources. In 2015, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established a long-term, continuous, low-frequency (10 Hz–2 kHz) passive acoustic monitoring site in the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanc...

Monitoring compliance and enforcing laws are integral to ensuring the success of marine protected areas (MPAs), but traditional monitoring techniques are costly and resource demanding. Three SoundTrap 300 recorders were deployed for one month between 1 July and September 12, 2018 to collect acoustic data in two marine parks off southeastern Austral...

Black sea bass (Centropristis striata) is an important fish species in both commercial and recreational fisheries of southern New England and the mid-Atlantic Bight. Due to the intense urbanization of these waters, this species is subject to a wide range of anthropogenic noise pollution. Concerns that C. striata are negatively affected by pile driv...

Six baleen whale species are found in the temperate western North Atlantic Ocean, with limited information existing on the distribution and movement patterns for most. There is mounting evidence of distributional shifts in many species, including marine mammals, likely because of climate‐driven changes in ocean temperature and circulation. Previous...

Mitigating the effects of human activities on marine mammals often depends on monitoring animal occurrence over long time scales, large spatial scales, and in real time. Passive acoustics, particularly from autonomous vehicles, is a promising approach to meeting this need. We have previously developed the capability to record, detect, classify, and...

Atlantic cod Gadus morhua populations in the northeast USA have failed to recover since major declines in the 1970s and 1990s. To rebuild these stocks, managers need reliable information on spawning dynamics in order to design and implement control measures; discovering cost-effective and non-invasive monitoring techniques is also favorable. Atlant...

Mammals with dependent young often rely on cryptic behaviour to avoid detection by potential predators. In the mysticetes, large baleen whales, young calves are known to be vulnerable to direct predation from both shark and orca predators; therefore, it is possible that mother-calf pairs may show cryptic behaviours to avoid the attention of predato...

The distributions of migratory species in the ocean span local, national and international jurisdictions. Across these ecologically interconnected regions, migratory marine species interact with anthropogenic stressors throughout their lives. Migratory connectivity, the geographical linking of individuals and populations throughout their migratory...

Passive acoustic sensors provide a cost-effective tool for monitoring marine environments. Documenting acoustic conditions among habitats can provide insights into temporal changes in ecosystem composition and anthropogenic impacts. Agencies tasked with safeguarding marine protected areas, such as the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. National Oc...

Assessing marine soundscapes provides an understanding of the biological, geological and anthropogenic composition of a habitat, including species diversity, community composition, and human impacts. For this study, nine acoustic recorders were deployed between December 2016 and June 2017 off six Caribbean islands in several Marine Parks: the Domin...

Passive acoustic monitoring is a common method for detection of endangered North Atlantic right whales. This study reports on the acoustic behavior of right whales on the winter calving grounds to assess their acoustic detectability in this habitat. In addition to known call types, previously undescribed low amplitude short broadband signals were d...

The life history, distribution, and acoustic ecology of the sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) in the western North Atlantic Ocean remains poorly understood. In this study an array of bottom-mounted recorders captured previously undocumented low frequency 50 to 30-Hz triplet and singlet down sweep vocalizations in close association with signature 82...

Managing interactions between human activities and marine mammals often relies on an understanding of the real‐time distribution or occurrence of animals. Visual surveys typically cannot provide persistent monitoring because of expense and weather limitations, and while passive acoustic recorders can monitor continuously, the data they collect are...

Effective fishery management measures to protect fish spawning aggregations require reliable information on the spatio-temporal distribution of spawning. Spawning closures have been part of a suite of fishery management actions to rebuild the Gulf of Maine stock of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), but difficulties remain with managing rebuilding. The o...

Autonomous recorders are frequently used for examining vocal behaviour of animals, and are particularly effective in remote habitats. Southern right whales are known to have an extensive acoustic repertoire. A recorder was moored at the isolated sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands for a year to examine whether the acoustic behaviour of southern right wh...

Understanding the behavioral ecology of a species is fundamental to effective conservation and management efforts. This study quantifies the behavioral ontogeny of North Atlantic right whale mother‐calf pairs from birth to weaning spanning three critical habitat areas off the eastern coast of the United States and Canada. Data from 55 focal follows...

Anthropogenic noise negatively impacts many species. One of the more insidious effects of elevated noise levels is the reduction in area over which animals are able to acoustically communicate, often termed communication masking. This study utilizes modeling approaches to evaluate relative levels of masking for 4 baleen whale species from the combi...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)/National Park Service (NPS) Ocean Noise Reference Station (NRS) Network is an array of currently twelve calibrated autonomous passive acoustic recorders. The first NRS was deployed in June 2014, and eleven additional stations were added to the network during the following two years. The twe...

The trajectory of development and refinement of communication signals closely map physical and social development in many vertebrate species. Although marine mammals exhibit highly complex and diverse communication signals, asking similar questions about signal development can be challenging when dealing with long-lived species that roam widely at...

The distribution and seasonal movements of sperm whales Physeter macrocephalus are poorly understood in the western North Atlantic Ocean, despite a long history of human exploitation of the species. Cetacean surveys in this region are typically conducted during the summer, when weather conditions are amenable for visual observation, resulting in a...

The use of commercial echosounders for scientific and industrial purposes is steadily increasing. In addition to traditional navigational and fisheries uses, commercial sonars are used extensively for oceanographic research, benthic habitat mapping, geophysical exploration, and ecosystem studies. Little is known about the effects of these acoustic...

In September 2016, the West Indies distinct population segment (DPS) of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae), was delisted under the US Endangered Species Act. This DPS covers all of the Caribbean breeding grounds. However, growing evidence suggests the West Indies DPS contains more than one breeding population. In response to these changes in...

Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary is located in Massachusetts Bay off the densely populated northeast coast of the United States; subsequently, the marine inhabitants of the area are exposed to elevated levels of anthropogenic underwater sound, particularly due to commercial shipping. The current study investigated the alteration of estimat...

Baleen whales in the western North Atlantic Ocean have habitat ranges that overlap with areas of high anthropogenic activity, subjecting them to lethal threats including ship strike and entanglement in fishing gear. Understanding their seasonal occurrence and how this changes over time is critical for the conservation of these endangered species. D...