but noise pollution kills the mood, writes Calum Mckinney, Study Finds, and it’s disrupting fish reproduction all across the world. Mckinney introduces us to Eva-Lotta Blom, a doctoral student at University of Gothenburg, who says “that a large part of the problem is that beneath the waves, sound travels much farther and almost five times faster than in the air.” One common source of noise is from ships, as the sound travels far from the source, creating a very noisy situation that would not be tolerated on land. But industrial noise from pile driving and “seismic airguns may be a bigger factor in ocean noise pollution.
And, no surprise, there are absolutely no noise regulations governing our oceans.
So, how does noise interfere with fish reproduction? Blom studied the effect of noise on gobies, and she found that “singing is critical to the male’s reproductive success.” She performed an experiment in which one tank of gobies was nice and quiet while the other was exposed to simulated boat noise. Blom found the results to be remarkable:
In the noisy environment, the fish didn’t mate much, and in the few instances they did, it took them longer. What’s more, half of the eggs in the noisy aquariums died without hatching and those that did hatch took longer to do so.
Even if you don’t care about the mating success of gobies, think about the implications of ocean noise pollution on fish stocks. With oceans already becoming more acidic and warmer, noise could be the final straw.