Data from: Silent oceans: ocean acidification impoverishes natural soundscapes by altering sound production of the world’s noisiest marine invertebrate

Soundscapes are multidimensional spaces that carry meaningful information for many species about the location and quality of nearby and distant resources. Because soundscapes are the sum of the acoustic signals produced by individual organisms and their interactions, they can be used as a proxy for the condition of whole ecosystems and their occupants. Ocean acidification resulting from anthropogenic CO2 emissions is known to have profound effects on marine life. However, despite the increasingly recognised ecological importance of soundscapes, there is no empirical test of whether ocean acidification can affect biological sound production. Using field recordings obtained from three geographically separated natural CO2 vents, we show that forecasted end-of-century ocean acidification conditions can profoundly reduce biological sound quantity and quality. Snapping shrimps were among the noisiest marine organisms and the suppression of their sound production at vents was responsible for the vast majority of the soundscape alteration observed. To assess mechanisms that could account for these observations, we tested whether long-term exposure (2-3 months) to elevated CO2 induced a similar reduction in the snapping behaviour (loudness and frequency) of snapping shrimps. The results indicated that the soniferous behaviour of these animals was substantially reduced in both frequency and sound level of snaps produced. As coastal marine soundscapes are dominated by biological sounds produced by snapping shrimps, the observed suppression of this component of soundscapes could have important and possibly pervasive ecological consequences for organisms that use soundscapes as a source of information. This trend towards silence could be of particular importance for those species whose larval stages use sound for orientation towards settlement habitats.声景（soundscapes）是一种多维度空间，可为众多物种提供关于远近资源的位置与质量的关键信息。由于声景是单个生物体发出的声学信号及其相互作用的总和，因此可作为整个生态系统及其栖息生物健康状况的替代评估指标。 已知由人为二氧化碳排放引发的海洋酸化会对海洋生物产生深远影响。然而，尽管学界日益认识到声景的生态重要性，但目前尚无实证检验海洋酸化是否会影响生物发声行为。 本研究借助三处地理隔离的天然CO₂喷口（natural CO₂ vents）获取的野外录音，证实预测的本世纪末海洋酸化水平可显著降低生物发声的数量与质量。鼓虾（snapping shrimps）是海洋中最嘈杂的生物类群之一，喷口处鼓虾发声行为受到抑制，是观测到的声景变化的主要成因。 为探究该现象背后的潜在机制，我们测试了长期（2~3个月）暴露于高CO₂环境是否会同样降低鼓虾的夹钳发声行为（包括响度与频率）。实验结果显示，这类生物的发声行为在夹钳声的频率与声压级两方面均出现显著下降。 由于近岸海洋声景主要由鼓虾的生物发声主导，观测到的该声景组分受抑制现象，可能会对依赖声景获取信息的生物产生重要且广泛的生态影响。这种声景静默化的趋势，对于幼体阶段依靠声音定位栖息生境的物种而言尤为关键。