Thanks to the Boring Fund, we are developing a common standard for Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) data.

Why it’s important: PAM is rapidly growing, but a core bottleneck is the lack of accepted standard for the exchange of PAM data, thereby limited data exchange, large-scale studies, and publication of open and FAIR data to platforms such as the GBIF. 

We explore if the recently developed Camtrap DP standard is a good fit for PAM. Camtrap DP has successfully solved this problem for the exchange and archival of camera trap data, which are structurally very close to audio data. Camtrap DP is a good candidate standard because it models data into deployments, media and observations, which is similar to PAM data.

To ensure this standard meets the diverse needs of the eco and bio-acoustic community, we are seeking input from researchers on their specific PAM (meta)data collection and analysis workflows.

What is a use case?

A use case describes how you collect and use PAM (meta)data in your research. This could include:

• Research questions: What are you trying to investigate with PAM? (e.g., target species, species distribution, abundance, behavior)
• Data collection methods: What type of microphones are you using? How are they deployed? What are your recording parameters?
• Data processing and analysis: How do you process your audio files (e.g., noise reduction, segmentation, filtering)? What methods and software do you use for analysis (e.g., acoustic indices, automated classification, manual annotation)?
• Data storage and sharing: How do you store your audio files and associated metadata? Do you share your data publicly?

How to contribute:

1. Please share your use case by filling out this form.
2. Add your comments to Suggested Camtrap DP changes. 

Why contribute?

By sharing your use case, you will:

• Help ensure the new PAM standard meets the needs of the community.
• Contribute to the development of a more efficient and interoperable ecosystem for PAM data.
• Advance open science and data sharing within the eco-acoustic community.

We appreciate your valuable contributions!

Contact:

Julia Wiel - julia.wiel@nina.no

Sanne Govaert - sanne.govaert@inbo.be