The target strength is a measurement of the reflection coefficient of a sonar target. Its value and feature is very important to detection and identification in active sonar, especially for fish by fishery acoustic students. A steel cylindrical shell is used as the target, whose outer diameter 194 mm, inner diameter 184 mm, length 500 mm, and both end closed covers with thickness 4 mm. A broadband transducer is selected to directionally project sound wave and a hydrophone receives the reflection wave from the target. The transducer and receiver are located at 5 m and 4 m from the target with the same depth 5 m in the water. When single frequency pulses are transmitted with signal interval frequency 50 Hz, the target strength is calculated by amplitude ratio of target echo and incidence wave at different frequencies. The result is compared with theoretical value for an infinite elastic cylindrical shell and finite length elastic cylindrical shell. This experiment will give a strategic guidance to understand what target strength is, how to understand it, and why we need it. [Work supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41374147).]
Target strength (TS) is an acoustic property of individual marine organisms and a critical factor in acoustic resource assessments. However, previous studies have primarily focused on measuring TS at narrowband, typical frequencies, which cannot meet the requirements of broadband acoustic technology research. Additionally, for marine fish, conducting in situ TS measurements is challenging due to environmental constraints. Rapidly freezing and preserving fish samples for transfer to the laboratory is a common method currently used. However, the impact of freezing preservation during transportation on the swimbladder morphology and TS of swimbladder-bearing fish remains unclear. This study investigated the differences in swimbladder morphology and TS of Chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) before and after freezing. Then, we compared different TS measurement methods through ex situ TS measurements (45–90 kHz, 160–260 kHz) and the Kirchhoff-ray mode model (KRM) simulations (1–300 kHz) and studied the broadband scattering characteristics of Chub mackerel based on the KRM model. The results showed that the morphology of the swimbladder was reduced after freezing, with significant changes in swimbladder height and volume. However, the trends of TS were not consistent and the changes were small. The difference between the KRM model and ex situ measurements was −0.38 ± 1.84 dB, indicating good applicability of the KRM. Based on the KRM results, the TS exhibited significant directivity, with fluctuations gradually decreasing and stabilizing as frequency increased. In the broadband mode, the relationship between TS and body length (L) of Chub mackerel was TS = 20log(L) − 66.76 (30 > L/λ >10). This study could provide a reference for acoustic resource estimation and species identification of Chub mackerel in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
Accurate prediction of gas load is critically important to ensure stable gas usage and accurate dispatch. In the literature currently available, the extensively used model-based methods are limited by their low prediction accuracy. In addition, data-driven approaches have low prediction accuracy because they are difficult to extract time series features directly from the original data. To resolve the above issues, a seasonal trend decomposition procedure based on loess (STL) has been developed to realize short-term gas load prediction with a hybrid neural network (HNN). Firstly, the original time series is divided into seasonal, trend, and residual components using STL. Especially, the trend is fitted with the least squares method, then both the new trend and residual components can be obtained. Secondly, the hybrid neural network is composed of a one-dimensional convolutional neutral network, a bidirectional gated recurrent unit, and a dilate gated recurrent unit, which are foused to extract temporal features for new residual component prediction. Finally, gas load prediction experiments are chosen to verify that STL-HNN outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.
The fishery resources in the Yangtze River Estuary (YRE) have declined drastically because of overfishing and environmental changes, leading to ecosystem degradation of the YRE, and bringing numerous rare fish species to the brink of extinction. As a new technology with great prospects for popularization and application, environmental DNA (eDNA) technology has been utilized and proven by many studies to have high potential in revealing the various species' biodiversity. In this study, we analyzed the species composition and diversity of the Yangtze River Estuary using a combination of eDNA technology and bottom trawling approaches, and later, the comparison of both methods. The results showed that combining eDNA technology and bottom trawling, 30 fish species from 7 orders and 11 families were identified. Among the 30 fish species, a total of six species of fish could be observed in catches from both methods. Perciformes were the most abundant and Coilia mystus was the dominant species. According to diversity indices, the eDNA technology reveals significant differences in fish community richness and diversity in the Yangtze River Estuary compared to the bottom trawl. In summary, the eDNA technology is feasible for monitoring fishery resources in the waters of the Yangtze River Estuary, thereby serving as a valuable supplementary tool for conducting comprehensive surveys in this region. Moreover, it holds significant implications and promising prospects for conserving the diverse ecosystem of the YRE in future conservation efforts.
Chub mackerel ( Scomber japonicus ) is an important commercial fish in the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Accurate target strength ( TS ) underpins acoustic stock assessment but the TS of S. japonicus is still poorly understood. In this study, the Kirchhoff-ray mode (KRM) model was used to estimate the TS of S. japonicus and its relationship with sound wave frequency and fish morphology. The results revealed that TS values varied with pitch angle shifts, with the impact on fish scattering strength being greater at higher frequency. This is less important because 38 kHz has been used for the biomass assessment of these fish resources. At frequencies of 38 kHz, 70 kHz, 120 kHz and 200 kHz, TS was greatest at a pitch angle range of -10° to 0°, which was related to the angle of the swim bladder tilt. There were almost no differences between TS estimated using the measured pitch angle distributions and using the universal distribution. When the measured pitch angle was N [-3°,4°], the average TS of S. japonicus with body length of 12.04–22.17 cm at four frequencies was -48.88 dB, -49.14 dB, -49.75 dB and -48.55 dB, respectively. The regression intercept ( b 20 ) in TS –body length equation was -73.27 dB, -73.56 dB, -74.18 dB and -73.46 dB, respectively. Variation in TS range at 0–300 m depth was about 10 dB. The simulated broadband target strength spectrum shows the scattering characteristics of individuals with different swim bladder length between 0–250 kHz. These results could be used for identification of S. japonicus in echograms and provide reference for acoustic stock assessment of S. japonicus in the Northwest Pacific Ocean.
An estuary region is a complex environment with a transition from fresh to brackish to salt water, and in which some environmental factors change dramatically over small ranges. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact of the selection of spatial scale on the prediction of the distribution of estuarine species. As the largest estuary in China, the Changjiang River estuary is the spawning ground, feeding ground, and migration channel for many species. Based on Coilia nasus, an important economic fish species in the Changjiang River estuary, this study uses the two-stage generalized additive model (GAM) to investigate the potential differences in the response of species’ spatial distribution when environmental factors are assessed at different spatial scales (1′ × 1′, 2′ × 2′, 3′ × 3′, 4′ × 4′, 5′ × 5′). The results showed the following: (1) according to the analysis of the variance inflation factor (VIF), the values of all environmental factors were less than three and we found no correlation among the environmental variables selected. (2) The first stage GAM retained six variables, including year, month, latitude (Lat), water depth (Depth, m), bottom salinity (Sal, mg/L), and chemical oxygen demand (COD, mg/L). The second stage GAM retained four variables, including Year, Lat, pH, and chlorophyll a (Chl-a, μg/L). (3) The mean value of the Chla for the 3′ × 3′ spatial scale was significantly lower than that of the other spatial scales, and the mean value of Sal for the 5′ × 5′ spatial scale was higher than that of the other spatial scales. (4) In terms of the spatial distribution of abundance, the distribution patterns of C. nasus predicted by all scales were not very similar, and the distribution patterns predicted by the 5′ × 5′ scale, in the autumn of 2012, were significantly different from those at other scales. Therefore, the selection of spatiotemporal scales may affect predictions of the spatial distributions of species. We suggest that potential spatiotemporal scale effects should be evaluated in future studies.
Nowadays, most fishing vessels are equipped with high-resolution commercial echo sounders. However, many instruments cannot be calibrated and missing data occur frequently. These problems impede the collection of acoustic data by commercial fishing vessels, which are necessary for species classification and stock assessment. In this study, an automatic detection and classification model for echo traces of the Pacific saury ( Cololabis saira ) was trained based on the algorithm YOLO v5m. The in situ measurement value of the Pacific saury was measured using single fish echo trace. Rapid calibration of the commercial echo sounder was achieved based on the living fish calibration method. According to the results, the maximum precision, recall, and average precision values of the trained model were 0.79, 0.68, and 0.71, respectively. The maximum F1 score of the model was 0.66 at a confidence level of 0.454. The living fish calibration offset values obtained at two sites in the field were 116.30 dB and 118.19 dB. The sphere calibration offset value obtained in the laboratory using the standard sphere method was 117.65 dB. The differences between in situ and laboratory calibrations were 1.35 dB and 0.54 dB, both of which were within the normal range.