Rodney Rountree's Homepage on Fish Ecology

Email address

Go to UMASS Amherst Faculty web page

My blog http://fishecology.org/pblog/index.php 

Hello.  This site includes links to my research activities in Marine Biology and Ichthyology. It includes extensive data on fish sounds and fish diets. My interests include marine ecology, marine biology, ichthyology, marine invertebrate zoology, fish behavior, marine fish and invertebrate community and behavioral ecology, estuarine ecology, habitat use behavior, trophic structure, fish-invertebrate symbiotic behaviors, artificial reef ecology, schooling behavior, energy exchange between habitats through fish/invertebrate migrations, and use of fish vocal patterns as a tool to study their behavioral ecology and to identify essential fish habitats. I'm currently conducting studies on the behavior and habitat use patterns of salt marsh nekton. Of particular interest is the relationship between cyclic fluctuations in environmental gradients to species zonation and tidal and diel migration patterns. More recently I've begun studies on soniferous behavior of fishes which address the role of vocal communication in reproductive behaviors, and that attempt to address habitat use questions (e.g., identification of essential spawning habitats/conditions) through automatic tracking of vocalizing fishes. One of my major research activities is in the rapidly developing field of passive acoustics, where I have been working to promote its application to fisheries science.    Abstracts from many of my papers and slides from recent talks can be viewed from my C.V.   I've also included links to some selected figures and unpublished photographs from the field.

About me

Curriculum Vitae - The online version of my CV contains links to papers or abstracts from many of my publications, as well as links to past seminars including talks on summer flounder, Gulf of Maine fish diets, Georges Bank guild structure, Ontogenetic shifts in predator types, and recent talks on estuarine habitat use patterns of marsh nekton and soniferous fishes.

My one page resume is available in html and PDF formats.

Research Interests Summary Illustrated summary of my current research interests (1.2 Meg pdf file)

My personal blog site. Topics will range from ecologial issues, Christian philosophy, favorite books, music and current events.

Marine Ecology and Technology Applications, Inc. My business web page (work in progress).

General Research Topics

Estuarine Research - These pages describe some of my past and ongoing research on estuarine fishes, essential fish habitat for estuarine fishes, and saltmarsh community structure. Unfortunately, I have not had time to include information on many of my estuarine projects yet.

Trophic Research - What do fish eat? What are the predators of a given fish or invertebrate? Find the answers here. I have conducted extensive research of marine fish food habits and include extensive tabulated data and analyses in my web page. This include extensive summaries of the diets of NW Atlantic fishes, including over 1,000 pie charts and diet composition tables for over 150 species of fish and two squids, plus tables of all predators for a given species (Analyses based on data provided by the NMFS). It also includes summaries of diet analysis for several papers in preparation.

Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) - These pages provide pictures and information on FAD research that I conducted some time ago, but which is still frequently requested from fishers, and resource managers around the world, especially from developing countries and subsistence fishers.

Soniferous fish ecology - Do fish make sounds? What do they sound like? Why do they make sounds? The study of fish soniferous (sound production) behavior and the applications of passive acoustics technology to fisheries and to the exploration of the sea is one of my major new research interests. These pages provide extensive examples of fish sounds. You can also find brief summaries of some of my current passive acoustics research projects. Those interested in more detailed information can download published papers and reports from my CV page. Go to the Soniferous main page for a list of many projects and examples of fish sounds. Shortcuts to a few more recent projects are listed below:

Workshop on passive acoustic applications to fisheries (http://seagrant.mit.edu/cfer/acoustics/index.html.

Underwater sounds of the Hudson River at The River Project site in NYC (river mile 2), and at the Tivoli Bay NERR cite (mile 95). During this pilot study we were amazed at the high occurrence of unknown fish sounds. We have posted many examples on our page. Click here to go to Katie's web page (some pictures take time to load).

Sounds of haddock and other fish on the fishing grounds of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and Jeffries Ledge in the Gulf of Maine. This is part of a collaborative study with commercial fishermen to record fish spawning sounds. So far we have positively identified haddock. Now we are working to quantify the daily pattern of haddock vocal activity through a new Sea Grant funded project.

NY Times article on fish sounds! By Nonny de la Penna. Cites recent research by several scientists working in the field. Be sure to go to the video link! (oops, you may notice the NY Times misidentified some of the fish pictures). The story was also picked up on Commedy Cental with a clip from the Colbert Report (Go to the video link labeled Tip/Wag Rain). Click on my Soniferous main page to find out more about passive acoustics and fish sounds. Cusk-eel information can be found on the cusk-eel page and in the Listening to Fish book.

Listening to Fish: New Discoveries in Science. I have writen an e-book on passive acoustics for kids grades 5-12 and interested adults. The book describes passive acoustics and its applications to fisheries and the exploration of the seas. It includes audio and video clips of fish sounds and fish behavior. Thanks to all my colleagues for their input!




Underwater sounds from Gilligan's Island! While on a short trip to Hawaii I had the chance to play around on Gilligan's Island. I provide a brief summary of my exploratory sampling as an example of how one might begin a low budget pilot project in a new area. Along the way, I made the first known recording of the underwater sounds of the marine toad Bufo marinus.

First survey of underwater sounds in the major river systems of New England. I have recently been funded to conduct an initial pilot study to survey the underwater soundscape of four major river systems in New England for the first time.

Links to other web pages I've set up a links page to fish passive acoustics research sites of other researchers. I also include web pages with galleries of fish sounds and some on general bioacoustics and whale acoustics. Links to hydrophone and acoustic software companies are also included.

Gallery of underwater sounds. Find shortcut links to many different fish sounds from my web pages here.

Other topics

Children's Stories New for kids, I've decided to post some of the fictional (and some nonfiction) children's stories I've written over the years for my family.

General Photographs - of myself, colleagues, and fish (many more photographs under other sections).

Over 20,000 visitors between August 2001 and April 2004

You are visitor number since April, 2004. Note this counter is of visitors to my home page only. In total there were over 70,000 visitors to my web site during the last 12 months.