Abstract:
Many marine assemblages of planktonic organisms are dominated, at least in narrow depth intervals or small volumes, by a single species or at least by animals with similar sound scattering properties. Situations arise, however, in which there are two or more acoustically dissimilar species present in the same volume examined acoustically. As the abilities to model sound scattering from a variety of animals becomes more sophisticated, a method is needed that allows one to take advantage of differences in acoustical signatures of different genera or species. Progress toward automatic classification of zooplankton and micronekton by acoustical methods is discussed, while information on size structure in the assemblage is retained. [Work supported by ONR Oceanic Biology and NSF Biological Oceanography.]