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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Wildlife Bio in Yukon Territory Canada
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University of Suffolk
Researcher on the 8 Primates Project
PhD student- biodiversity monitoring using acoustic data
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Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Saskatchewan investigating biodiversity change in agriculture, primarily using bioacoustics.
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Clay Bolt is the Manager of Pollinator Conservation for World Wildlife Fund-US and a conservation photographer focused on supporting policy that protects insects from pesticides and other threats. Clay’s words and images have appeared in publications such as National Geographic M
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Underwater Bioacoustician interested in developing PAM for freshwater systems
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Ecologist and conservation researcher, currently an Assistant Professor at University of Michigan-Flint, research areas include landscape ecology, forestry and wildlife interactions, wildlife habitat relationships, spatial ecology, GIS.
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Tech for Conservation
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Article
New guidance - Good practice for ecoacoustic monitoring
Carlos Abrahams
We're very pleased to announce the publication of new 'Good practice guidelines for long-term ecoacoustic monitoring in the UK', produced by Manchester Metropolitan University, Baker Consultants Ltd and a great team of...
23 February 2023
Careers
Rainforest Connection (RFCx), in collaboration with USFWS, seek four Puerto Rican field agents to assist in deploying and retrieving audio recorders for a long-term biodiversity monitoring project in and around six...
22 February 2023
Careers
Research Assistants in Kitzes Lab
Justin Kitzes
Our group once again has openings for Research Assistants to work with us on our bioacoustics projects. A job ad and description of how to apply are below - please feel free to get in touch with any questions!
16 February 2023
Link
Interesting PhD thesis just shared via ResearchGate, looking at developing eDNA and bioacoustics to 1) detect invasive/endangered crayfish & identify rivers vulnerable to invasion, and 2) Describe pond soundscape...
10 February 2023
Careers
Swift Software Developer - Lab of Ornithology
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
The Cornell University Lab of Ornithology is seeking a Software Developer to join the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics.
10 February 2023
Careers
Research Associate - Machine Learning (Underwater Sound)
Stephanie O'Donnell
You will develop and apply novel approaches and machine learning techniques for the detection, classification and identification of marine fauna from passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) validated with paired visual...
10 February 2023
Careers
Technical Officer – IMOS Animal Tracking Facility
Stephanie O'Donnell
IMOS Animal Tracking Facility is hiring a Technical Officer to assist with the preparation, deployment and maintenance of acoustic receivers to monitor movements of tagged animals & continue to develop operational...
7 February 2023
Careers
Are you excited by the potential for new technologies to help monitor the natural world? Do you enjoy communicating your passion for technology and nature with diverse audiences? We are seeking an enthusiastic...
2 February 2023
Careers
Consultancy opportunity: Wildlife monitoring specialist
Anthony Dancer
Consultancy opportunity at ZSL for an experienced monitoring specialist to support species monitoring in rewilding landscapes across Europe
31 January 2023
Article
Apply Now: AI for Conservation Office Hours
WILDLABS Team
Are you stuck on an AI or ML challenge in your conservation work? Apply now for the chance to receive tailored expert advice from data scientists! Applications due 27th January 2023
18 January 2023
Link
This study uses passive acoustic monitoring to record the patterns of illegal cattle occurrence within protected areas in the Brazilian Pantanal.
12 January 2023
Careers
Conservation Technology Intern (Vietnam)
Meredith Palmer
WILDLABS and Fauna & Flora International are seeking an early career Vietnamese conservationist for 12-month paid internship position to grow and support the Southeast Asia regional community in our global...
11 January 2023
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Recently updated products
| Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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| We actually recently introduced Recording Schedules - where you can control the PUC's duty cycle during (Day, Night, Dawn, Dusk). |
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Acoustics | 11 months 2 weeks ago | |
| Hey Xavier! Thank you for your interest and question!! The overarching goal of the FinDrop v1 for the WildLabs award is to characterize an instrument and make it as, if... |
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Acoustics, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 11 months 3 weeks ago | |
| The main takeaway from this particular localization was that a gunshot was able to be detected considerably further than I previously thought. 2.7km is really far I think for a... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
| Hi Nick,Yes, It's very common to have big data in the SD cards when recording bats!I agree with Carly's comments. Indeed, I suggest you make a schedule so you do not record... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
| So excited for this! These topics are all super relevant and comprehensive. Maybe one thing that might be interesting to hear about is projects where PAM is combined with... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
| Hi Stefan,Sorry, I'm not sure I fully understand your question.If you're referring to my first comment, the package I initially tried didn't work with my dataset. The likely... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
| Hi there Loveness, I agree there is a ton to learn with acoustic monitoring! Here's my favorite website for learning the (many) basics! Discovery of Sound in the SeaHave... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
| Karibu sana |
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Acoustics, East Africa Community, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 year ago | |
| Hi César, Is there a geographic area you're limited to? That would help to narrow down options. I would recommend reaching out perhaps to the Kitzes Lab, Sound Forest... |
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Acoustics, Citizen Science, Community Base, Early Career, Marine Conservation | 1 year ago | |
| Retweet on OpenSoundscape - great package and documentation that allows you to build your own CNNs! Note that this is in Python though. There are tons of bioacoustics... |
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Acoustics, Data management and processing tools | 1 year ago | |
| Hi @BrettMargoSupplies this product seems like a fantastic addition to The Inventory, WILDLABS' wiki-style discovery platform for conservation technology. Adding a product is... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
| Hi everyone, I am conducting a research project as part of my MSc in Environment and Development at the London School of Economics. I... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Ethics of Conservation Tech | 1 year ago |
European Forum Alpbach
1 August 2023 5:23pm
Senior Technical Specialist, Monitoring & Technology, ZSL
18 July 2023 1:44pm
New Updates to Carbon Mapper Data Portal
12 July 2023 4:57pm
WOPAM Day (World Oceans Passive Acoustic Monitoring Day)
12 July 2023 4:04pm
LABMaker
6 June 2023 3:31pm
17 June 2023 10:36am
Dear Tom, the AudioMoths are being sold via LabMakers (but I do not know if they construct them for them). Have you been in touch with the AudioMoth team? I am sure they will be able to provide you useful feedback regarding what you are trying to do, and LabMakers.
I have only used them to buy things from them.
Regards, Christos
3 July 2023 4:00pm
Hi Tom,
Seeed Studio also offers manufacturing services. Check out more info on the website here :)
RFCx/Arbimon is Hiring a Data Scientist!
28 June 2023 9:37pm
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Catch up with The Variety Hour: June 2023
16 June 2023 11:43am
Wildlife Monitoring Engineer
8 June 2023 4:54pm
ISO Speakers for Emerging Technologies class.
31 May 2023 4:29pm
31 May 2023 10:21pm
Definitely interested! I'm in the ecoacoustics/acoustic monitoring space, working at Rainforest Connection and Arbimon.
2 June 2023 2:08pm
Carly, that would be great! Thanks! I work with soundscapes and love the work of Rainforest Connection! I'll send you an email (@CUNY) to coordinate!
Funding Opportunity for attending bird-focused events and trainings
2 June 2023 12:54am
Looking for AI volunteer positions
24 May 2023 5:41am
24 May 2023 3:45pm
Hi Donya! You might check out the Conservation Tech Directory to see what projects/organizations/tools best align with your interests and skills.
New Paper: Identification of fish sounds
5 May 2023 12:40am
Marine Mammals Research Association (DMAD) and ACCOBAMS Joint Training Course
4 May 2023 1:00pm
Soundscape analysis using eco‑acoustic indices for the birdsbiodiversity assessment in urban parks (case study: IsfahanCity, Iran)
2 May 2023 11:52pm
[Recordings Now Available!) EarthRanger User Conference
27 April 2023 5:52am
Software for marine acoustic monitoring?
25 April 2023 11:53pm
Congo Basin activity?
30 March 2023 9:14pm
25 April 2023 5:08pm
greetings!
i sent you a PM regarding this, feel free to contact me however is most convenient for you -
regards,
chris
HydroMoth GroupGets Campaign is Open
17 April 2023 8:44pm
How do I get started with Bird Audio processing and classification?
17 April 2023 9:11am
World Oceans Passive Acoustic Monitoring Day
14 April 2023 4:36am
Project Manager, Rainforest Connection (RFCx)
12 April 2023 1:09pm
The 59th Annual Meeting of Illinois Chapter of The Wildlife Society
12 April 2023 5:24am
Accessible acoustic analysis tech for blind scientist - ideas?
31 March 2023 10:52pm
6 April 2023 10:49pm
Hey Kate I don't have any explicit ideas at the moment but will think on it - such a cool concept! I wonder if there's some form of tactile spectrogram that you could develop, or a way that you could have them try to draw a representation (so assign some shape) of what they are hearing as a means of classification a call and then clustering those shapes? There's a way of creating an image using foam and paper I believe so they could have a tactile record of those shapes. Guess it depends what you want to the quantitative results to be. Super cool that you are looking for greater accessibility in acoustics!!!
7 April 2023 1:40am
Hi Kate,
We've developed a screen-reader workflow for a classification problem on our "Ocean Voices" Zooniverse project, which simply asks folks to label sounds based on what they hear and omits the spectrogram altogether. There are lots of screen-reader users who are active in the Zooniverse Talk forums, so they may have valuable input for you as well.
Once a person has labeled data, I wonder if they could run automated detectors over the data in Pamguard, calculate features (using something like the R package PAMpal), and then use the BrailleR package to explore the statistics in R. This article has a pretty interesting summary about statistical software for visually impaired folks - might not be news to your student, but I thought it was pretty cool.
I'm very curious what our friends who are visually impaired might notice in the acoustic data. Best of luck to you and your student!
Cheers,
Anne
7 April 2023 5:11pm
Hi Kate- ARISTA Lab (Advanced Research in Inclusion & STEAM Accessibility) is actively working on this through their eclispse soundscape project. I recommend reaching out to MaryKay to get the latest on their project.
Megan
Who's going to ESA in Portland this year?
31 March 2023 9:27am
4 April 2023 9:58am
That sounds great. I think you should encourage people to bring a bit of tech with them, can be a good conversation starter/ice-breaker
4 April 2023 4:04pm
Good idea! I've got a ransom assortment of different acoustic recorders I can bring along
5 April 2023 11:58pm
Indeed, I'll be there too! I like to meet new conservation friends with morning runs, so I will likely organize a couple of runs, maybe one right near the conference, and one somewhere in a nearby park where we can look for wildlife. The latter would probably be at an obscenely early hour, so we can drive somewhere, ideally see elk (there are elk within 25 minutes of Portland!), and still get back in time for the morning sessions.
Updates about Arbimon for Ecoacoustics - free, cloud based analytical tool
31 March 2023 11:09am
31 March 2023 3:43pm
Yes please reach out with any questions on acoustic monitoring, Arbimon, RFCx, etc.!
8 June 2023 1:59am
GroupGets?