Signal kurtosis as a predictor of biological impacts from noise exposure

Anthropogenic noise is compromising the habitat for marine mammals, fish, and other marine organisms. Determining acceptable exposure thresholds is confounded by the fact that marine animals have adapted to some exceedingly loud naturally occurring sounds, whereas exposure to certain anthropogenic noises at equivalent or lower amplitudes causes harm. It is clear that exposure mitigation thresholds cannot be established by signal amplitude alone; rather signal qualities should be considered when attempting to predict noise exposure impacts.