Effects of exposure to pile driving sounds on the lake sturgeon, Nile tilapia, and hogchoker

Pile driving and other impulsive sound sources have the potential to injure or kill fishes. One mechanism that produces injuries is the rapid motion of the walls of the swim bladder as it repeatedly contacts nearby tissues. To further understand the involvement of the swim bladder in tissue damage a specially-designed wave tube was used to expose three species to pile driving sounds. Species included lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvecens) with an open (physoclistous) swim bladder, Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) with a closed (physostomous) swim bladder, and the hogchoker (Trinectes maculates) a flatfish without a swim bladder. There were no visible injuries in any of the exposed hogchokers, while a variety of injuries were observed in the lake sturgeon and Nile tilapia. At the loudest cumulative and single strike sound exposure levels, the Nile tilapia had the highest total injuries and the most severe injuries per fish. As exposure levels decreased, the number and severity of injur...