Acoustic records of the underwater soundscape at PALAOA with links to audio stream files, 2005-2011

Scientific background: Marine mammals use sound for communication, navigation and prey detection. Acoustic sensors therefore allow the detection of marine mammals, even during polar winter months, when restricted visibility prohibits visual sightings. The animals are surrounded by a permanent natural soundscape, which, in polar waters, is mainly dominated by the movement of ice. In addition to the detection of marine mammals, acoustic long-term recordings provide information on intensity and temporal variability of characteristic natural and anthropogenic background sounds, as well as their influence on the vocalization of marine mammals
Scientific objectives: The PerenniAL Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean (PALAOA, Hawaiian "whale") near Neumayer Station is intended to record the underwater soundscape in the vicinity of the shelf ice edge over the duration of several years. These long-term recordings will allow studying the acoustic repertoire of whales and seals continuously in an environment almost undisturbed by humans. The data will be analyzed to (1) register species specific vocalizations, (2) infer the approximate number of animals inside the measuring range, (3) calculate their movements relative to the observatory, and (4) examine possible effects of the sporadic shipping traffic on the acoustic and locomotive behaviour of marine mammals.
The data, which are largely free of anthropogenic noise, provide also a base to set up passive acoustic mitigation systems used on research vessels. Noise-free bioacoustic data thereby represent the foundation for the development of automatic pattern recognition procedures in the presence of interfering sounds, e.g. propeller noise.

科学背景：海洋哺乳动物依靠声音完成交流、导航与猎物探测。因此，即便在极地冬季能见度受限、无法开展目视观测的时期，声学传感器仍可用于探测海洋哺乳动物。这些动物身处持续存在的自然声景之中，在极地水域中，该声景主要由冰层运动主导。除海洋哺乳动物探测外，长期声学记录还可提供典型自然与人为背景噪声的强度及时间变异性信息，以及此类噪声对海洋哺乳动物发声行为的影响相关数据。

科学目标：位于诺伊迈尔站附近的南极海域长期声学观测站（PerenniAL Acoustic Observatory in the Antarctic Ocean，缩写PALAOA，夏威夷语意为“鲸鱼”），旨在连续数年记录陆架冰缘附近区域的水下声景。此类长期记录可实现在几乎不受人类活动干扰的环境中，持续研究鲸类与鳍足类动物的声学发声谱。后续将对该数据集开展以下分析：(1) 识别并记录物种特异性发声信号；(2) 推算监测范围内海洋哺乳动物的大致种群数量；(3) 计算其相对于观测站的移动轨迹；(4) 探究零星航运活动对海洋哺乳动物声学行为与运动行为的潜在影响。

该数据集基本不受人为噪声干扰，可为研究船搭载的被动声学噪声抑制系统的搭建提供基础支撑。此外，无干扰的生物声学数据，可作为开发适用于存在螺旋桨噪声等干扰声源场景下的自动模式识别程序的核心基础。