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
- @Mauricio_Akmentins
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National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET)
Researcher and conservationist, focused on the conservation of the endemic and threatened amphibian species of Andean ecoregions of NW Argentina.

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Xeno-canto
Co-founder and admin of Xeno-canto.
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I am the regional ecologist for South-Eastern KwaZulu-Natal at Ezemvelo KZN Wildllife and a honorary research fellow at the Centre for Functional Biodiversity at the School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
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- @Freaklabs
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Freaklabs
I'm an engineer and product designer working on wildlife conservation technology.



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- @mlamb2
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PhD Student working on a computer vision model to detect colonial waterbirds along the Texas coast in aerial imagery
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I'm a young conservationist from Ghana with over 7 years experience in Pangolin Conservation. My focus in Conservation is the human dimension of conservation. I am currently the manager for the Onepone Endangered Species Refuge.
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The World Can Be Better
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- @Lucille
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La Trobe University
Marine bioacoustician and elasmobranch scientist
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Ol Pejeta Conservancy
Endeavoring to implement tech solutions for conservation.



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- @AndreaHerguedas
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PhD student ~ acoustic stress response and behavior of sea turtle juveniles
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You can now pick with or without switch
21 October 2024
Link
Empower GIS day, 20th of November 2024 Welcome to join over the globe
9 October 2024
Very nice video!
7 October 2024
The Marine Innovation Lab for Leading-edge Oceanography develops hardware and software to expand the ocean observing network and for the sustainable management of natural resources. For Fall 2025, we are actively...
6 October 2024
Not really news, but it's worth shouting about!
2 October 2024
I'm a MIDS graduate student at UC Berkeley working on a citizen science app for automated frog call identification. I'd like to know how users interact with such apps and their pain points. This 5-minute survey will...
27 September 2024
The African Bioacoustics Conference!
18 September 2024
After all the discussion about calibration yesterday during the bioacoustics hardware call, I figured I should link to my talk on the subject from a few years ago.
6 September 2024
The Coral Research & Development Accelerator Platform opened it's Coral Accelerator Program 2024 for internationally collaborating teams to apply with innovative projects ranging from 'novel early-phase' to 'final...
26 August 2024
The IQOE Task Team on Low-Cost Hydrophones for Research, Education and Citizen Science would like to understand the needs of all hydrophone end-users. Please answer a few questions in this online survey! By...
26 August 2024
Join us for Season Five of the WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series, tuning in to the world of Bioacoustics! Laying the groundwork for our new horizon scan research, each event will convene cross-sector experts to explore a...
22 August 2024
Join us in celebrating this year’s Judging Panele Award winners!
19 August 2024
June 2025
July 2025
September 2025
event
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November 2025
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61 Products
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi Teresa, Thanks for your interest in Arbimon! The platform has a couple different analysis tools that range from unsupervised (like audio event detection & clustering,... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 3 months ago | |
Real nice video. I'll have another look in the weekend in detail. |
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Acoustics, Community Base, Protected Area Management Tools, Geospatial, Sensors | 1 year 3 months ago | |
When it comes to long-range communication in the jungle, it can be challenging due to the dense vegetation that can obstruct radio waves.... |
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Acoustics, Connectivity | 1 year 3 months ago | |
I would recommend going with Ubiquity 2.4Ghz devices which have performed relatively well in dense foliage of the California Redwood forests. It took a lot of tweaking to... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Open Source Solutions | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Thank you @carlybatist |
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Acoustics | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Let me introduce my Citibats Cambodia project (inaturalist.org/projects/citibats-cambodia) hosted on iNaturalist. At the moment we have... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Thanks Aude, very useful. Will reach out to them! |
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Early Career, Acoustics, eDNA & Genomics, Marine Conservation, Protected Area Management Tools | 1 year 4 months ago | |
A very nice read, especially for me someone new to the field as myself. Nice to see all of the various approaches and to know I wasn't re-inventing the wheel but adding something... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 4 months ago | |
Cool! My Sound Localization project has hit hackaday. The use case of fireworks localization was pure sensationalism. |
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Acoustics | 1 year 4 months ago | |
If you are considering an external microphone and a towed system, then you would also be in a position to consider a raspberry pi with an external microphone with sbts-aru.... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Marine Conservation, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 1 year 5 months ago | |
When I designed the recorder. I chose it to use jackd2 instead of pulse audio or direct alsa access because unless I was mistaken it could support multiple consumers of the sound... |
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Acoustics | 1 year 5 months ago | |
I am not an acoustics person but train and deploy canines in the field. Are you looking for something that records sniff rate and patterns? For GPS I just use a Garmin... |
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Acoustics, Animal Movement, Geospatial | 1 year 5 months ago |
Conservation Tech Directory - new update!
29 August 2022 2:38pm
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
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:
page/sonarpoint | Desert Star Systems
The SonarPoint system is the third generation of Desert Stars passive underwater acoustics monitoring toolkits.
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
New paper: Evaluation of a coastal acoustic buoy for cetacean detections, bearing accuracy and exclusion zone monitoring
20 September 2022 3:00pm
New paper: Soundscapes show disruption across the diel cycle in human modified tropical landscapes
20 September 2022 2:40pm
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
Solicitation of Interest: NAVFAC Atlantic Marine Resources
31 August 2022 7:28pm
Acoustics Modeler & Analyst, Marine Acoustics Inc
30 August 2022 9:45am
Conservation Technology Research Internship
26 August 2022 4:58pm
New paper: Acoustic indices as proxies for biodiversity: a meta-analysis
22 August 2022 4:03am
Ceres Wild Rhino application
22 August 2022 1:29am
29 September 2022 4:05am
Replacement acoustic membranes for Audiomoth case
31 May 2022 2:15pm
9 June 2022 11:35am
Hi carly,
You've probably seen this already as we tagged you, but I'm dropping it here in case anyone else is having the same issue!
We used the plastic from a stronger A4 plastic folder-case taped. Don't know the type, the one we keep our fieldnotes...
— Attila D. Sandor (@adsandor) June 9, 2022
9 June 2022 1:09pm
@alex_rogers jumping in too:
@groupgetscom has the original vent fitted to the case in stock and available individually - https://t.co/IozIRPVPOS. There is also a UK-based specialist who can provide small numbers of vents - https://t.co/wrQy80Xx0I.
— Alex Rogers (@alex_rogers_cs) June 9, 2022
20 August 2022 9:49am
Alex,
which one of those
https://selectronix.co.uk/collections/waterproof-acoustic-vents
would be the appropriate for the Audiomoth case?
Agus
Looking for plant and animal eco-acoustics specialists in the Alps
10 August 2022 3:01pm
10 August 2022 3:24pm
Hey maya,
If you're free - come along to our Variety Hour call next week and ask folks there too. We're keeping the last 10 mins open for people to jump up and put out calls like this!
Steph
Catch Up with the WILDLABS Variety Hour: August 2022
10 August 2022 11:44am
Product Grant Program
9 August 2022 7:09pm
African Bioacoustics Conference 2022
5 August 2022 3:08pm
IBAC Online Symposium 2022 - Frontiers in Bioacoustics
5 August 2022 2:42pm
Opportunity: Postdoctoral Researcher
4 August 2022 9:08pm
23 September 2022 5:26pm
Congrats on the milestone Carly and Gracie!