In-Air and Underwater Hearing in the Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis).

Hearing thresholds of a great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) were measured in air and under water using psychophysics. The lowest thresholds were at 2 kHz (45 dB re 20 µPa root-mean-square [rms] in air and 79 dB re 1 µPa rms in water). Auditory brainstem response measurements on one anesthetized bird in air indicated an audiogram with a shape that resembled the one achieved by psychophysics. This study suggests that cormorants have rather poor in-air hearing abilities compared with other similar-size birds. The hearing capabilities in water are better than what would have been expected for a purely in-air adapted ear.

A global database of intentionally deployed wrecks to serve as artificial reefs.

This paper contains data on intentionally deployed wrecks to serve as artificial reefs from 1942 to 2016. The deployment of decommissioned vessels and other available wrecks is a common practice in many coastal countries, such as the USA, Australia, Malta, and New Zealand. We obtained data of georeferenced sites of wrecks from the scientific literature, local databases, and diving web sites published in the English language. Furthermore, we included information regarding the type of structure, location, depth, country, year of deployment and estimated life span. Moreover, we provide information on whether the wreck is located inside one of the World׳s Protected Areas, key biophysical Standard Level Data from the World Ocean Database, distance to reefs from the Coral Trait Database, and distances to 597 aquariums that are members of the Species360 global network of Aquariums and Zoological institutions, in the Zoological Information Management System (ZIMS). We provide data for wrecks with monitoring surveys in the peer-review literature, although these only comprise 2% of the records (36 of 1907 wrecks). The data we provide here can be used for research and evaluation of already deployed reefs, especially if combined with additional spatial information on biodiversity and threats.