Read the passage below carefully and answer the question that follows.
For decades, coastal mangrove estuaries were primarily valued for their physical storm-buffering capacity and nutrient-filtering capabilities. However, recent advances in passive acoustic monitoring have revealed that these intertidal forests function as critical acoustic sanctuaries vital to marine biodiversity. The dense root networks of mangroves do not merely attenuate wave energy; they significantly dampen anthropogenic noise pollution generated by coastal shipping and motorized vessels. Within these sheltered sonic micro-habitats, juvenile fish and larvae rely on natural biophony—such as the rhythmic snapping of alpheid shrimp and vocalizations of vocal teleosts—for navigational cues essential to settlement and survival. When industrial noise penetrates unbuffered waters, it disrupts acoustic communication, disorients larval navigation, and impairs predator-prey dynamics. Consequently, marine ecologists now advocate for integrating acoustic landscape conservation into coastal management frameworks. Protecting the sonic integrity of mangrove habitats is thus as imperative as maintaining their vegetative coverage, demonstrating that auditory preservation is fundamental to ecosystem resilience.
Which of the following statements best expresses the central idea of the passage?
- AThe dense root systems of coastal mangroves primarily function to attenuate wave energy and filter nutrient runoff.
- Mangrove habitats serve as essential acoustic sanctuaries whose auditory preservation is crucial for marine ecosystem resilience.Answer
- CMotorized vessel transportation in coastal waters must be banned to protect alpheid shrimp biophony.
- DAnthropogenic noise pollution enhances the natural biophonic signals required by larval teleosts for navigation.