Dr Marta Bolgan

- Senior Acoustician

I am a Marine Biologist interested in recording fish sounds for monitoring species presence, activities, dynamics, and diversity. I achieved my PhD at the Atlantic Technological University (Ireland) with an inter-disciplinary thesis in the field of conservation behaviour. My doctoral research investigated the potential of monitoring Arctic charr sounds for obtaining valuable information for its management and conservation.

Since completing my degree, thanks to different postdoctoral positions in Portugal and Belgium, I continued using fish sounds as natural tags for monitoring fish populations and communities in marine (Adriatic, Balearic, Tirrenian, and Aegean Sea), transitional (Venice lagoon) and freshwaters environments (UK, Ireland, and Portugal lakes and rivers).

From a broad perspective, my research extents from individuals to communities, and aims to shed light on organisms’ interactions and responses to environmental changes. In practice, I relied on an integrative approach including animal behavioural studies, sound recording and analysis (in the laboratory and in the wild), fish morphological examinations, and ecological research. Previous studies span from the significance of visual and acoustic communication in different fish families (e.g., gobies, drummers, salmons, cusk-eel, scorpionfishes etc.), to community monitoring within the scope of management and conservation. At OSC, I contribute to acoustic data analysis, modelling for commercial and research project, as well as tendering for new works and project management.

In total, I have been conducting research in the field of fish bioacoustics and ecoacoustics since 2012….in other words, I can promise you; fishes are anything but silent!

Dr Marta Bolgan

Senior Acoustician

Publications

Bolgan M., Parmentier E., Picciulin, M., Hadjioannou, L, Di Iorio L., (2023, in press). Use of Passive Acoustic Monitoring to fill knowledge gaps of fish global conservation status. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater ecosystems.
Amorim M.C.P., Wanjala J.A., Vieira M., Bolgan M., Connaughton M., Pereira B.P., Fonseca P.J, Ribeiro F. (2023, accepted). Detection of invasive fish species with passive acoustics: discriminating between native and not-indigenous Sciaenids. Marine Environmental Research 188
Picciulin, M., Bolgan, M., Rako-Gospić, N., Petrizzo, A., Radulović, M., & Falkner, R. (2022). A fish and dolphin biophony in the boat noise-dominated soundscape of the Cres-Lošinj archipelago (Croatia). Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 10(2), 300.
Bolgan M., Di Iorio L., Dailianis T., Catalan I.A., Lejeune P., Picciulin M., Parmentier E. (2022). Fish acoustic community structure in Neptune seagrass meadows across the Mediterranean basin. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems.  
Burchardt, L.S., Picciulin, M., Parmentier, E., Bolgan, M. (2021) A primer on rhythm quantification for fish sounds: a Mediterranean case study. Royal Society Open Science 8: 210494.
Picciulin M., Bolgan M., Fiorin R., Facca C., Malavasi S. (2021). Sound discrimination of two sympatric, threatened fish species allows for their in-situ mapping. Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems 31: 2103-2018
Bolgan M., Parmentier E. (2020). The unexploited potential of listening to deep-sea fish. Fish and Fisheries 00, 1-15.
Bolgan M., Gervaise C., Di Iorio L., Lossent J., Lejeune P., Raick X., Parmentier E. (2020). Fish biophony in a Mediterranean submarine canyon. Journal of Acoustic Society of America 147(4): 2466-2477.

Dr Marta Bolgan

Dr Marta Bolgan

- Senior Acoustician

Publications

UK

Greece

New Zealand