What does the fish say?
Clicks and buzzes on coral reefs suggest that there is communication by sound under the sea. Who is speaking? And what might they be saying? Dr Anjani Ganase discusses research on sounds emitted by fish. For life in the ocean, water becomes the ideal medium for communicating by sound compared to air. Sound travels five times faster and much further distances in water compared to air. When it comes to other communication methods, by comparison, the use of smell (olfactory) or sight is limited to much smaller spaces. While this may not be obvious on the brightly lit shallow, buzzing coral reefs, for most of the ocean that is in low light or no light conditions, sound becomes very important. Most studies of sound communication listen to large marine mammals, who use sophisticated sounds patterns to communicate with each other and to navigate distances of hundreds of kilometres. Less understood are the sounds used by fish to communicate with each other at close range, or whether th...