Nekton and plankton acoustics: an overview

The field of nekton and plankton acoustics is expanding with the developmen t of new hardware and software and their applications. A symposium on nekto n and plankton acoustics was held at the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting in Monterey, CA, 1997. New and standardized measurement techniques to identify and classify nekton and plankton aggregations, and to estimate density, swimming speed and other target characteristics were presented. As the conservation community and the general public becomes more aware of th e need to improve nekton and plankton measurement capability in fisheries s cience, there will he a growing demand for interdisciplinary research, deve lopment and education between the fields of physics and biology. (C) 2000 E lsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.