Acoustic sensors enable efficient and non-invasive monitoring of a wide range of species, including many that are difficult to monitor in other ways. Although they were initially limited in application scope largely due to cost and hardware constraints, the development of low-cost, open-source models like the Audiomoth in recent years has increased access immensely and opened up new avenues of research. For example, some teams are using them to identify illicit human activities through the detection of associated sounds, like gunshots, vehicles, or chainsaws (e.g. OpenEars).
With this relatively novel dimension of wildlife monitoring rapidly advancing in both marine and terrestrial systems, it is crucial that we identify and share information about the utility and constraints of these sensors to inform efforts. A recent study identified advancements in hardware and machine learning applications, as well as early development of acoustic biodiversity indicators, as factors facilitating progress in the field. In terms of limitations, the authors highlight insufficient reference sound libraries, a lack of open-source audio processing tools, and a need for standardization of survey and analysis protocols. They also stress the importance of collaboration in moving forward, which is precisely what this group will aim to facilitate.
If you're new to acoustic monitoring and want to get up to speed on the basics, check out these beginner's resources and conversations from across the WILDLABS platform:
Three Resources for Beginners:
- Listening to Nature: The Emerging Field of Bioacoustics, Adam Welz
- Ecoacoustics and Biodiversity Monitoring, RSEC Journal
- Monitoring Ecosystems through Sound: The Present and Future of Passive Acoustics, Ella Browning and Rory Gibb
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- AudioMoth user guide | Tessa Rhinehart
- Audiomoth and Natterjack Monitoring (UK) | Stuart Newson
- Help with analysing bat recordings from Audiomoth | Carlos Abrahams
Three Tutorials for Beginners:
- "How do I perform automated recordings of bird assemblages?" | Carlos Abrahams, Tech Tutors
- "How do I scale up acoustic surveys with Audiomoths and automated processing?" | Tessa Rhinehart, Tech Tutors
- Acoustic Monitoring | David Watson, Ruby Lee, Andy Hill, and Dimitri Ponirakis, Virtual Meetups
Want to know more about acoustic monitoring and learn from experts in the WILDLABS community? Jump into the discussion in our Acoustic Monitoring group!
Header image: Carly Batist
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42 Products
Recently updated products
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Rainforest Connection's (RFCx) Guardian devices may be of interest. They are solar-powered and have connectivity options for Wifi, GSM and satellite transfer. They've previously... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago | |
Dear Antonio,It is a long-shot, but this may be relevant to what you are looking for? I have collected across 4 seasons (2022) 8-10 days/season acoustic data from 11 stations... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 3 months ago | |
Hello All - @sarabeery et Al have just put a pre-print out on their educational insights into teaching Computer Vision to ecologists. I... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Early Career, Emerging Tech | 1 year 3 months ago | |
The Conservation Technology Lab at San Diego Zoo seeks undergrads for summer projects in computer vision, machine learning, bioacoustics,... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Yeah, it's an exciting project. Also will be a great excuse to improve PAMGuard documentation - something sorely needed. Python libraries also on the way as part of this.As for... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 5 months ago | |
Hi Alex,I'd go much further along the lines that David @dtsavage sets out. Before jumping to implementations, better think through why you want to keep all that data, and for who... |
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Acoustics, Data management and processing tools | 1 year 6 months ago | |
The open-source program Audacity can show the spectrograms and histograms and has quite a lot of other useful features, e.g. playing ultrasound calls slower, so it can be heard by... |
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Acoustics, Citizen Science, Data management and processing tools, Open Source Solutions, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 6 months ago | |
Thanks so much!! |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Drones, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Remote Sensing & GIS, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 7 months ago | |
I love the idea of increasing international collaboration and inclusion within acoustic monitoring! I think there particularly needs to be more collab'ing between the terrestrial... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 7 months ago | |
Hi there Camilo, What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options: ... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 7 months ago | |
I have been waiting for journal club to come back!! 10000% down.I agree with @StephODonnell, would love it to come back!!! And now that variety hour is happening, that's more of... |
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Acoustics, Community Base | 1 year 7 months ago | |
Alex,which one of thosehttps://selectronix.co.uk/collections/waterproof-acoustic-vents would be the appropriate for the Audiomoth case?Agus |
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Acoustics | 1 year 8 months ago |
New paper: Benthic animal-borne sensors & citizen science combine to validate ocean modelling
10 October 2022 4:15pm
"We develop the use of benthic species as animal oceanographers by combining archival (depth, temperature) data from animal-borne tags, passive acoustic telemetry & citizen-science mark-recapture records for the flapper skate in Scotland."
The Smart Biosphere: How Technology can provide regenerative resources at scale
10 October 2022 12:06pm
Open Position at Cornell - Software/Firmware Developer
6 October 2022 5:10pm
Multi-day workshop: Machine Learning Advances for Marine Acoustics & Imagery Data
4 October 2022 5:20pm
Audio Across Domains Workshop 2022
3 October 2022 7:54pm
11 October 2022 2:05pm
New paper - Rookognise: Acoustic detection & identification of individual rooks in field recordings using multi-task neural networks
3 October 2022 2:35pm
Authors developed system to acoustically identify individual animals (under varying conditions) using combo of multi-scale information integration, multi-channel audio & multi-task learning. Tested on captive group of rooks.
New paper: Battery-free wireless imaging of underwater environments
29 September 2022 3:22pm
'The low-power camera uses power from harvested acoustic energy and communicates colour images wirelessly via acoustic backscatter.' - https://twitter.com/NaturePortfolio/status/1574863768714100738?s=20&t=d…
New paper: Seasonal swarming behavior of Myotis bats revealed by integrated monitoring, involving passive acoustic monitoring with automated analysis, trapping & video monitoring
27 September 2022 3:22pm
Authors 'examined effectiveness of acoustic monitoring compared to capture-based & video monitoring of seasonal swarming behavior among Myotis bats in UK. The 3 approaches have advantages & disadvantages for different tasks, but can be highly complementary methods.'
Conservation Tech Directory - new update!
29 August 2022 2:38pm
23 September 2022 5:26pm
Congrats on the milestone Carly and Gracie!
26 September 2022 10:07pm
Thanks so much!!
Audio Data Across Domains (AudioXD) Workshop
6 June 2022 3:52pm
1 September 2022 11:46am
Great minds Alice!! I'd actually sent your workshop to justin separately this morning because of the alignment with audioxd.
As for joining things up globally, I think you're right. Looking at all that's happening in the bioacoustics community right now, seeing all these sort of events, what's happening with the bioacoustics stack exchange, and hearing the conversations that are happening - and it feels like such an opportune time to find a way to support all of these efforts link up and join forces. We have some plans on this front that will mean we'll be able to provide coordination support to help, and I'm interested to hear what people think is needed.
Steph
1 September 2022 3:21pm
Thanks Alice, and great to hear from you and Steph about the work that you all are leading. It would be great to follow up on the idea of doing more international collaboration in the ecoacoustics/bioacoustics space. If you're interested, feel free to drop me a line to catch up sometime about ideas.
Also, something of a side note, but we'll also have a Wildlabs blog post up summarizing the AudioXD meeting soon, hopefully.
26 September 2022 9:22pm
I love the idea of increasing international collaboration and inclusion within acoustic monitoring! I think there particularly needs to be more collab'ing between the terrestrial & aquatic/marine acoustic monitoring folks!
It would be great for more virtual/hybrid events to foster such international inclusion, so anything to facilitate that sort of online platform would be awesome!
There is also the new Bioacoustics Stack Exchange for Q&A. And the upcoming IBAC conference in Japan next October (2023).
Ecological Forecasting Initiative's data analysis webinar series
26 September 2022 6:50pm
New paper: A novel method for identifying coded tags recorded on aquatic acoustic monitoring systems
26 September 2022 2:11pm
Authors demonstrated "a low cost, simple method to support acoustic tag surveys by identifying tags both from direct acoustic recordings & by reconstructing code packets from processed C-POD data. Method was applied to decode tag detections from bass & Twaite shad."
Mangrove soundscape
27 August 2022 4:57pm
29 August 2022 2:47pm
You might check out the devices listed in the Conservation Tech Directory - you can search for 'acoustic recorder' or 'ARU' or something like that.
The most common off-the-shelf models (other than Frontier Labs' BARLTs mentioned above😊) are Open Acoustic Devices Audiomoths & Hydromoths (which may be particularly useful for you since they come in completely watertight cases that can be stuck underwater for deployments), Wildlife Acoustics' SongMeter series, and Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Swift units.
30 August 2022 10:10pm
Camilo--
Are you interested only in airborne sounds or do you want to deploy hydrophones? That decision would inform a lot of other decisions about your purchase of equipment, as would having a clearer picture of your budget.
23 September 2022 5:39pm
Hi there Camilo,
What an interesting project! If you are looking for a lower cost, but effective tools for acoustic monitoring you might want to look into two options:
SoundTraps - are very commonly used and perform quite well:
SonarPoints - these are also a great instrument option:
Senior Conservation Technology Expert Position (Consultancy) with the Global Wildlife Program
22 September 2022 5:35pm
New paper: Passive acoustic monitoring as a tool to investigate the spatial distribution of invasive alien species
21 September 2022 2:07am
Authors developed reproducible passive acoustic monitoring pipeline to rapidly provide baseline information on invasive alien species (IAS); found that IAS occurrence related to high levels of human disturbance.
New paper: Evaluation of a coastal acoustic buoy for cetacean detections, bearing accuracy and exclusion zone monitoring
20 September 2022 3:00pm
Authors "developed a three-hydrophone passive acoustic monitoring system that provides bearing information along with marine mammal detections to allow for informed management decisions in real-time."
New paper: Soundscapes show disruption across the diel cycle in human modified tropical landscapes
20 September 2022 2:40pm
Authors founds dawn & dusk choruses were lost/supressed in plantations, acoustic activity at dawn/dusk reduced in disturbed ecosystems compared to healthy forests.
WILDLABS Journal Club
15 September 2022 11:42am
15 September 2022 12:17pm
Ah Journal club - this was a lot of fun but a little chaotic. We've been wondering if we should bring it back with a slightly different format. ie we all agree on a paper to read before rather than bringing a mix of things to present. What does everyone think? Is anyone else keen? Is there a format you'd suggest we use?
15 September 2022 3:49pm
I have been waiting for journal club to come back!! 10000% down.
I agree with @StephODonnell, would love it to come back!!! And now that variety hour is happening, that's more of the "mix of things" that she mentioned anyways so I think that new format would be great.
Online Course – Introduction to Aquatic Acoustic Telemetry
14 September 2022 6:13pm
CFP - transnational biodiversity monitoring (from European Biodiversity Partnership)
14 September 2022 1:42pm
Join the BirdNET team!
9 September 2022 2:43pm
BOEM job openings
Postdoctoral Fellow in Soundscape Ecology at Purdue University
8 September 2022 4:12pm
Catch Up with the Variety Hour: September 2022
6 September 2022 12:31pm
Postdoc: Noise Impacts on Marine Animals
1 September 2022 9:25pm
New paper - 'soundClass: An automatic sound classification tool for biodiversity monitoring using machine learning'
1 September 2022 8:53pm
Silva et al -
- R package to train convolutional neural networks & employ them to classify sounds
- sound event classification pipeline, from annotating recordings to automating
trained networks
- case studies with bat & whale echolocation calls, bird songs
Solicitation of Interest: NAVFAC Atlantic Marine Resources
31 August 2022 7:28pm
Acoustics Modeler & Analyst, Marine Acoustics Inc
30 August 2022 9:45am
3 October 2022 11:40pm