Passive acoustic monitoring of sound characteristics and vocalisation patterns of Brown croaker
Data files
May 04, 2026 version files 4.55 GB
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Brown_croaker_sound_data.zip
4.55 GB
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README.md
2.56 KB
Abstract
Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an observation method for detecting and characterising ocean soundscapes, and it has recently been used to observe underwater marine life. The brown croaker (Miichthys miiuy) is an important fish species in the Northwest Pacific Ocean that produces biological sounds. In this study, the sounds of 150 adult brown croakers were recorded continuously for 3 weeks using a self-recording hydrophone. The acoustic parameters of their calls, choruses, and vocalisation patterns were analysed using environmental factors from the ocean. The brown croaker`s call sound with zero peak sound pressure level was 150.8 dB, but the chorus sound was relatively high at 161.3 dB. The vocalisation of the sounds occurred daily around sunset and dusk and was associated with decreased spawning activity when the water temperature decreased below approximately 25 °C. The acoustic characteristics of the brown croaker`s sounds will help improve ocean soundscape management to protect the marine ecosystem and identify spawning and fishing grounds.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.kkwh70sgc
Description of the data and file structure
We deployed an underwater self-recording hydrophone (SM3M, Wildlife Acoustics, Inc., USA) to continuously record acoustic data for 13 consecutive days (from September 18 to 30, 2023). A single hydrophone was used throughout the study. The hydrophones receiving voltage sensitivity (RVS) was set to 164.6 dB V/Pa, with a gain of 0 dB and a sampling frequency of 48 kHz. Brown croaker sounds were stored as digital files every 10 minutes. The Brown croaker`s sounds were stored as digital files and were configured to record data for 9 minutes 56 seconds every 10-minute intervals, resulting in a duty cycle of 99%.
Files and variables
File: Brown croaker sound data.zip
Description:
The attached *.zip file contains the Brown croaker`s data in the paper, along with the source code for analyzing and plotting the results presented in the figures and tables of the manuscript.
Upon extracting the 'Brown_croaker_sound_data.zip' file, you will find the following folder structure:
Folder Structure
- Folder1 - Brown croaker_Analysis_code
Includes the MATLAB code (*.m) for generating Figure 1 and Table 1. Also, the PG_DFT.m code is needed to run the Brown_croaker_analysis_Fig1.m file.
- Folder2 - Brown croaker_Data
Includes some of the data file (*.wav) from the self-recording hydrophone, which representatively appear the Brown croaker`s sounds (The data size was too large, so the data was resampled and uploaded, and the remaining data files can be provided upon request from the 1st and corresponding authors)
- Folder3 - Brown croaker_Spectrogram_Fig_2
Includes the MATLAB figure files (*.fig) of Figure 2a, Figure 2b, and Figure 2c.
- Folder4 - Brown croaker_Time_Series_Fig_1
Includes the MATLAB figure files (*.fig) of Figure 1a, Figure 1b~1e, Figure 1f, and Figure 1g.
- Folder5 - Water temperature_data
Includes Date/Time (Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute, Second), water temperature (celcius) water depth (m) data (*.xlsx) for Figure 2c.
Important Note
The MATLAB codes in the above folder structure load data files using relative paths, so it is essential to maintain the folder structure when working with the files.
Code/software
We analysed the Brown croaker`s fish sound data with MATLAB R2025a (MathWorks, USA) to examine the time series signals and energy distribution characteristics in the frequency band of interest.