Old Sneed Park Dr Jack Greenhalgh
Freshwater life Dr Jack Greenhalgh
The previously hidden and diverse underwater acoustic world in British ponds has been revealed by a team of researchers at the University of Bristol.
Ponds are magnets for life and a lot of that life is very noisy. Water beetles, bugs, fish, frogs, and even aquatic plants all produce sound creating a diverse underwater orchestra that scientists are only just starting to understand.
Acoustic monitoring has been shown to effectively survey birds and monkeys in rainforests, and marine mammals in the oceans. However, freshwater environments have remained largely unexplored despite their diverse soundscapes.
"Ponds are packed full of bizarre and mysterious sounds made by scratching aquatic insects, booming fish, and popping plants. It's like an underwater disco!" explained lead author Dr Jack Greenhalgh from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences.
