The aquatic soundscape is a big part of the marine environment, and many fish are known to be soniferous. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is critical in the monitoring of soniferous fish as well as their biological processes. In this study we used PAM to distinguish between sounds produced by two marine sciaenid species in the Tagus estuary, namely the native Argyrosomus regius (meagre) and the invasive Cynoscion regalis (weakfish), based on differences in acoustic features. Our results show differences in the acoustic features of meagre and weakfish, thus suggesting that it is possible to distinguish between the two in the field, thus validating PAM as a useful tool in the monitoring of populations of vocal invasive fish species. Further monitoring studies are needed in the field to confirm these findings.
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