Ready Steady Learn
Dr Craig Radford | Using underwater sound to navigate
MP3, 12m35s, 11.5MB, first broadcast 7 September 2010
Dr Craig Radford is a postdoctoral fellow at the Leigh Marine Laboratory. Last year he received a Marsden grant for his research on how marine organisms respond to noise.
Many swimming larvae are attracted to the underwater sounds produced by reefs, and it is thought that this may help them to identify places to settle for the adult phase of their lives. But so far no one has been able to show whether the larvae can actually detect the noises whilst far out at sea. Craig is studying the biological significance of the reef sounds by examining how they are transmitted in shallow water, how sensitive the hearing of marine larvae is, and how their behaviour changes with distance from the reef.
