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Science 3 February 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5761, pp. 660 - 663
DOI: 10.1126/science.1121756
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Reports

Fish Population and Behavior Revealed by Instantaneous Continental Shelf-Scale Imaging

Nicholas C. Makris,1* Purnima Ratilal,2 Deanelle T. Symonds,1 Srinivasan Jagannathan,1 Sunwoong Lee,1 Redwood W. Nero3

Until now, continental shelf environments have been monitored with highly localized line-transect methods from slow-moving research vessels. These methods significantly undersample fish populations in time and space, leaving an incomplete and ambiguous record of abundance and behavior. We show that fish populations in continental shelf environments can be instantaneously imaged over thousands of square kilometers and continuously monitored by a remote sensing technique in which the ocean acts as an acoustic waveguide. The technique has revealed the instantaneous horizontal structural characteristics and volatile short-term behavior of very large fish shoals, containing tens of millions of fish and stretching for many kilometers.

1 Center for Ocean Science and Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, 409 Dana Research Center, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
3 Naval Research Laboratory, Stennis Space Center, MS 39529–5004, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: makris{at}mit.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)