SONA

The Southern Ocean Network of Acoustics (SONA)

Start date: 1 August, 2013
End date: 31 July, 2016

The Southern Ocean Network of Acoustics (SONA) represents a group of scientific institutes and industrial partners who have united to measure an under-sampled component of the ecosystem – the mid-trophic level – to agree common standards and protocols for data collection and processing and with a view to provide that data on an open access basis.

SONA will use bio-acoustics to monitor mid-trophic organisms at large spatial scales annually along transits to Antarctic research bases and fisheries sites. It will unite multi-national calibrated acoustic data from both research and fisheries vessels into a common accessible database. This data will inform on ecosystem based fisheries management, marine planning and monitoring impacts of climate change.

Ultimately the project will input data and knowledge to international bodies such as the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and international programmes such as Integrating Climate and Ecosystem Dynamics (ICED) through the SENTINEL programme and the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) and provide a road map for a global acoustic database of the mid-trophic level.

SONA has two strategic objectives that are designed to provide a data framework and sharing procedure that will address three scientific objectives.

Strategic objectives:

1. Lead, coordinate and support the Antarctic scientific community in generating an open access database of acoustic observations of the mid-trophic level.

To maintain and develop coordination and communication between the different science and national programmes within SONA.
To determine and adopt calibration and acoustic data collection and processing protocols to ensure high quality common data collection.
To enable the implementation of the South Atlantic Science, South Atlantic Opportunistic and Southern Ocean Baseline Acoustic databases.
To develop the SONA data discovery and data access website and determine open-access procedures for the databases.
To actively expand the network of partners and supporters in terms of geographic representation and expertise.

2. To implement a self-sustaining long-term acoustic observing strategy framed within the international observing and modelling communities.

To support and organise an international workshop that will advance our knowledge of the status of the ecosystem of the South Atlantic sector of the Antarctic, focussing on the mid-trophic level.
To create an atlas of mid-trophic level distribution in the Southern Ocean with associated qualification of uncertainties.
To support and organise an international workshop that will advance our knowledge of the status of the Southern Ocean ecosystem, focussing on the mid-trophic level
To coordinate activities leading to high impact outputs that include publication of the SOBA atlas, and peer-reviewed literature outputs from the workshops.
To liaise with international programmes such as SOOS and AntaBIF for the long-term stewardship and funding of the databases.
To interact with the ICED (Integrating Climate and Ecosystems Dynamics) community to integrate mid-trophic level measurements into ecosystem models in order to address issues pertaining to Southern Ocean food-web structure and scenarios of change that will influence the IPCC process.

Scientific objectives:

Determine a baseline and establish methods to determine long-term trends in the distribution of mid-trophic level organisms in the South Atlantic part of the Southern Ocean.

Determine a baseline and establish methods to determine long-term trends in the circumpolar distribution of mid-trophic level organisms in the Southern Ocean.

Provide and advise on a mid-trophic level component to the Southern Ocean ecosystem to the scientific community (ICED and CCAMLR) for integration into models concerning biogeochemical processes and ecosystem based fisheries management.

Sophie Fielding

Zooplankton Ecologist

Ecosystems team

Alexander Tate

Senior Data and Systems Architect

Information Services team, UK Polar Data Centre team

Partners

Institute/Company	Partner/Contacts	Geographic sector of Southern Ocean
Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) [Australia]	Martin Cox	Indian/Pacific
British Antarctic Survey (BAS) [UK]	Sophie Fielding, Alex Tate	Atlantic
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) [Australia]	Rudy Kloser, Tim Ryan	Indian/Pacific
Institut de Recherche pour le développement (IRD) [France]	Patrice Brehmer, Nolwenn Behagle	Indian
Institute of Marine Research (IMR) [Norway]	Georg Skaret, Rolf Korneliussen	Atlantic
Intergated Marine Observing System (IMOS) [Australia]	Rudy Kloser, Tim Ryan	Indian/Pacific
National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) [New Zealand]	Richard O’Driscoll, Adam Dunford	Pacific
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service [USA]	Christian Reiss, Tony Cossio	Atlantic

Data collection

Fundamental to SONA is the collection of bio-acoustic data at single (38 kHz) and/or multiple frequencies (12, 18, 38, 70, 120, 200 and 333 kHz) from existing international vessel infrastructure (scientific research and commercial fishing vessels). These vessels are on transit over regions of ecological and oceanic importance in the Southern Ocean. Project partners are signed up to SONA representing international logistic and fisheries vessels (through direct data sharing or via parallel data portals).

Data access strategy

SONA focusses on data sharing and making data fully accessible. All acoustic data held by SONA are managed by the host institutes but can be found by searching through a fully searchable web interface. Access the SONA data portal here.

Data will be brought together in stages, by building the following databases:

South Atlantic Scientific database of acoustic backscatter (SAS)

The USA (NOAA), Norway (IMR) and the UK (BAS) have been committed to long term surveys of krill using acoustic methods at three mesoscale survey areas across the Scotia Sea. SONA will unite these datasets in common formats and processing and fund a workshop to deliver a synthesis of current understanding of mid-trophic level variability in the South Atlantic sector of the Antarctic.

South Atlantic Opportunistic database of acoustic backscatter (SAO)

The Antarctic community has recognised the value of collecting and processing calibrated data on common principles (ICES, CCAMLR). BAS and the project partners will utilise transit opportunities (during logistic runs to Antarctic bases) to collect acoustic data to build up baseline maps of acoustic backscatter on common protocols. It will utilise SONA collaborations and build new collaborations with the fishing industry (developed with project partners and CCAMLR to provide greater coverage of acoustic data across the South Atlantic). SONA will work with these communities to automate collection and processing in order to establish the long-term capability for an open-access acoustic database.

Southern Ocean dataBase of Acoustic backscatter (SOBA)

The project partners represent interests and data collection potentials within all sectors of the Southern Ocean. SONA will integrate the SAO with the IMOS database and other Antarctic sector data (e.g. Indian Ocean sector with IRD, France) to develop an open access Southern Ocean baseline acoustic dataset.

RRS James Clark Ross

One of the world's most advanced polar research vessels

Research outputs