A Plainfin Midshipman fish guarding his eggs on the rock
Researchers at the University of Liverpool are leading a £1 million international research project to investigate whether fish use vibrations travelling through the seabed and other surfaces to communicate and sense their environment.
Dr Louise Roberts, from the University of Liverpool's School of Environmental Sciences, is heading up the interdisciplinary "fish vibes" project which involves scientists from the University of Rhode Island (Professor James Miller), the University of Lisbon (Professor Clara Amorim) and the University of Washington (Professor Joseph Sisneros).
Vibration-based communication and sensing is widespread across the animal kingdom. For example, elephants use low-frequency vibrations travelling through the ground to communicate over long distances, and insects use vibrations in plant stems to signal to mates.
However, relatively little is known about how animals use substrate-borne vibrations in aquatic environments. Fish frequently produce sounds and visual signals, including movements such as trembling, while in contact with, on, or close to the seabed and other surfaces. More than 900 fish species are known to produce sounds, including during courtship and aggressive interactions.
The new project will investigate whether fish vocalisations produce vibrations, whether fish respond to vibrations, and how these signals and cues travel through different underwater substrates. Many fish produce low-frequency, high-intensity sounds while in direct contact with a surface. The potential role of these vibrations in fish behaviour and ecology has received little scientific attention.
The researchers will explore whether the underwater vibrational environment - known as the vibroscape - forms an important part of the sensory world of fish, alongside the underwater soundscape.
The project brings together international expertise in biotremology, acoustical oceanography, fish bioacoustics and neurophysiology. Fieldwork will be carried out in the United States and Portugal, alongside laboratory experiments in all four institutes, paired with advanced experimental and modelling techniques.
The research will also contribute to the emerging field of marine biotremology - the study of how aquatic organisms produce, transmit and detect mechanical vibrations, and how these vibrations influence behaviour.
Dr Roberts, and her newly appointed postdoc here at Liverpool Dr Jordan Burgess, have to date predominantly focussed upon vibrational noise and sensing in marine invertebrates. The new project will extend this research to fish and could help establish a greater understanding of how vibrations influence marine life.
Dr Roberts said: "This is a really exciting research project which sits at the forefront of aquatic sensory ecology.
"We already know that marine invertebrates are highly sensitive to vibrations in the seabed and sediments, but despite the contact of many fishes with these areas, the role of vibrations in fish ecology and communication is unexplored.
"I am proud to lead this team of international experts to tackle this novel research question, utilising cutting-edge research techniques and tools to think outside the box and to progress marine biotremology.
"There is every possibility that we will uncover a new mode of communication in fish, and reveal a previously uncharted sensory landscape in marine ecology - the underwater vibroscape."
By combining field observations, laboratory experiments and modelling, the researchers hope to determine how vibrations are produced, detected and transmitted by fish, and what role they may play in their behaviour and ecology.
The project, 'Vibrational sensing and production in fishes: investigations of the underwater vibroscape' (RGP018/2025) is supported by a £1 million ($1.35 million) HFSP Research Grant Award from the Human Frontier Science Program, which funds ambitious, interdisciplinary and international research through its Research Grants Program
