Among marine mammals and marine birds, we find many sensory adaptations to an aquatic lifestyle. We study how aquatic animals adapt their hearing abilities to make efficient use of sound cues underwater. We use psychophysics to measure the hearing sensitivity of animals both in air and under water, and playback experiments, array recordings and behavioural observations to understand how free-ranging animals make use of sound cues. We also study how cod and other fish make use of sound for communication, and how they react to sound.

These topics are important to better understand how marine animals interact with their environment with sound. It is also important for assessing the effects of the increasing number of human underwater sound sources, such as shipping, construction work at sea, and oil exploration, on aquatic animals.