Listening in to noisy ponds

Scientists at the University of Bristol, England, have found that British ponds are “full of bizarre and mysterious sounds, made by scratching insects, booming fish and popping plants.” Dr Jack Greenhalgh and his team collected 840 hours of sound recordings from five ponds, using a hydrophone (underwater microphone). They found that there was a daily cycle of noise; plants are most noisy in the day and insects get going at night. Greenhalgh described it as sounding like an “underwater disco”. Aquatic (living in water) plants made rhythmic whining and ticking sounds, which Greenhalgh said sounded “like factories whirring”. Sounds are made as plants breathe under the hot sun and tiny oxygen bubbles are released. At night, insects like water boatmen rub parts of their body together to produce scratching sounds…

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The Week Junior (UK) (Digital) - 1 Issue, 386

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