Mann Laboratory
Marine Sensory Biology
Research
Bioacoustics
Listen to the sounds of these marine animals:
Spotted seatrout
Silver perch
Black drum
Gulf toadfish
Domino damselfish
Manatee
Snapping shrimp
Fishes
Sound
production by Sciaenid fishes (croakers and drums):
This projects goals are to understand the patterns of sound production
in croakers and drums. The Sciaenids are perhaps the worlds' most
prolific underwater sound producers. In North America they can be
found throughout the Caribbean, the Gulf Coast, and up the Atlantic
seaboard. Black drum are so loud that they can be heard inside of
homes adjacent to canals in which they reside. It is the Ph.D.
project of James Locascio.
Sound production by groupers (Serranidae): Groupers are commercially important species that form spawning aggregations produce sounds during territorial and courtship behaviors. We are identifying the sounds produced by a number of species in order to map the distribution of their spawning habitat.
Red
Hind: We are collaborating with Dr. Rich Appeldoorn's
laboratory (Michelle Schärer and Michael Nemeth) to
study red hind (Epinephelus guttatus) sound production in
Puerto Rico and Mona Island. Research funded by
CCRI.
Goliath, Red, Gag, Scamp: We are studying sound production by goliath grouper (Epinephelus itajara), red grouper (Epinephelus morio), gag (Mycteroperca microlepis), and scamp (Mycteroperca phenax) with Dr. Chris Koenig and Dr. Felicia Coleman of Florida State University. The research on sound production by red grouper is the basis of the Master's thesis of Misty Nelson.
Poster at left is distributed in Puerto Rico to encourage protection of spawning red hind.
Hearing in fishes:
We have several projects studying the hearing of fishes centered on understanding how well larval and adult stages of fish hear, as well as how stressors such as noise, anthropogenic chemicals, and marine toxins (from harmful algal blooms) may impact hearing. This is important research because fish are exposed to real bad chemicals (such as PCBs and chemicals of similar structure) and marine neurotoxins. Many of these pollutants and red tide toxins cause hearing loss in experimental model organisms. But, we do not know if these man-made and red-tide toxins affect hearing in wild fish. Dr. Eric Montie, postdoctoral fellow, is spearheading this important research.
Sea Turtles
Hearing in loggerhead sea turtles: They look dumb, but Kelly Martin is training loggerhead sea turtles to tell us when they can hear a sound. In her Masters research in collaboration with Dr. Gordon Bauer (New College of Florida), Kelly is measuring the underwater behavioral audiogram of sea turtles at Mote Marine Laboratory.
Reactions of loggerhead sea turtles to boats: We are tagging loggerhead sea turtles with satellite tags and DSG acoustic recorders to measure the acoustic environment of loggerhead sea turtles during their inter-nesting interval. Research by Kelly Martin in collaboration with Dr. Tony Tucker of Mote Marine Laboratory.
Manatees
Hearing
and tactile detection in manatees:
The purpose of this project is to determine the audiogram and tactogram
of Hugh and Buffett, two captive manatees at Mote Marine Laboratory.
Manatees are unique marine mammals in that they have tactile hairs
distributed over their massive girth. The goal of this project is
to understand the sensitivity of the tactile hair system (tactogram) and
how manatees use this sense. This work is being performed by Joseph
Gaspard, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida, in
collaboration with Dr. Roger Reep (UF) and Dr. Gordon Bauer (New College
of Florida).
Cetaceans
CEPscreen: This project is to develop a rapid hearing screener for stranded cetaceans that can determine whether a dolphin has a major hearing loss in less than one minute.
Hearing in wild bottlenose dolphins: This project is led by USF Ph.D. graduate Dr. Mandy Hill Cook in collaboration with Dr. Randy Wells of the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program.
DEVO (Dolphin Ecological Variation and Oceanography). Named for our 80's retro trawl-resistant mounts, the DEVO project aims to understand the influence of oceanographic processes on cetacean distributions on the West Florida Shelf. DEVO uses new DSG recorder technology which are low power recorders capable of deployments of up to one year. Whip it good.
Passive Acoustics Technology
Our field research relies on the use of acoustic dataloggers to collect
sound data over extended periods of time. These devices use a
hydrophone to detect underwater sounds and then store it to flash
memory.