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
A wildlife scientist, focusing mainly in primates conservation & research, Community-based conservation and ecosystems management.
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Andigena ID+ es una empresa Colombiana dedicada a promover la conservación de la biodiversidad de manera integral a través de la investigación y el desarrollo.
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University of Suffolk
Researcher on the 8 Primates Project
PhD student- biodiversity monitoring using acoustic data


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Ocean Science Analytics
Marine mammal ecologist and online technical trainer



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Postdoctoral researcher at the University of Saskatchewan investigating biodiversity change in agriculture, primarily using bioacoustics.
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- @cbnatphoto
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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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Natural Solutions

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KONKLUSI (Kolaborasi Inklusi Konservasi - Yayasan)
Your friendly Indo-Crocky-Croc



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- @KeesteVelde
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Underwater Bioacoustician interested in developing PAM for freshwater systems

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- @MStarking
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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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sustainability strategist, naturalist, consultant
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Sarab Sethi is looking for a PhD student (Sept 24) to investigate real time insect pollinator monitoring with acoustics. Sensor design, ML, lab and field experiments, and more !
16 November 2023
Join the Rainforest Connection & Arbimon team to develop software for biodiversity monitoring!
14 November 2023
I just discovered this freely available book on digital signal processing and love the fact that it is“…intended for students … who may not have much mathematical or engineering training.” Seems like a great resource...
31 October 2023
Baker Consultants has released new ecoacoustic research assessing the benefits of using automated detectors alongside transect bird survey methods.
30 October 2023
Article
Five #tech4wildlife people, projects and updates that caught my attention this month. This issue is a naturetech, biodiversity startup edition! Featuring a living map of the biodiversity startup scene, is nature data...
27 October 2023
Careers
The Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) seeks a California-based acoustic monitoring specialist to collect, manage, and process avian acoustic data from multiple research and conservation projects across California...
26 October 2023
With the rising threats to biodiversity such as wildlife crime, climate change and human-wildlife conflict today, wildlife monitoring technologies have become vital to study movement ecology, behaviour patterns, changes...
25 October 2023
New paper in Nature Communications from Jörg Müller et al. using BAR-LT recorders and CNNs to track biodiversity recovery. Study shows that #soundscapes 🎙🎶 and deep learning are powerful tools for tracking biodiversity...
20 October 2023
To study song evolution in time and space, we will use individual acoustic monitoring (IAM) - a non-invasive method that allows the identification of individuals based solely on their vocalisations. In this project, we...
20 October 2023
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Fellowship in Bioacoustic AI for wildlife protection. The PhD position advertised here will be based at the KU Leuven Electrical Engineering Department (ESAT), under the supervision of...
20 October 2023
FLOATERS: Using individually distinct vocalizations to estimate breeding and non-breeding population of a species. Apply for the fully funded PhD position now!
20 October 2023
The Kitzes Lab at the University of Pittsburgh (http://kitzeslab.org) is seeking applications for a Postdoctoral Scholar, Research Assistant, and Graduate Student to work in the areas of bioacoustics, quantitative...
28 September 2023
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61 Products
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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If you search Digikey for a 'strain relief' you should be able to find a rubber grommet that will hold that mic without any additional machining. A blob of silicone will adhesive... |
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Acoustics | 11 months 4 weeks ago | |
Thanks Carly! I had reviewed some of the help files, but clearly not the right ones!My email is deanc5697@my.uwstout.edu |
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Acoustics, Software Development | 11 months 4 weeks ago | |
Hi Tabitha, What recording settings were you using when you saw these differences? I've measured the consumption across some different firmware versions and I can't see any... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
Hello!Long time, no update. @StephODonnell suggested I post here with my thesis and some reflections. ---------------------------------------------------------TL;DR... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
Hi Jesse,For a material to be acoustically transparent (in air), the speed of sound in the material times its density must match that of air. Realistically, any solid... |
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Acoustics, Animal Movement | 1 year ago | |
Hi Steph, We appreciate the support! Thanks for the tag and your help managing the community!Patrick |
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Sensors, Acoustics, Conservation Dogs, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions | 1 year ago | |
Hi Sol,If the maximum depth is 30m, it would be worth experimenting with HydroMoth in this application especially if the deployment time is short. As Matt says, the air-filed case... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Sustainable Fishing Challenges | 1 year ago | |
Oh wow, thank you so much!!!I will keep that four advices in mind! |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
You won't get any audio if you don't allow enough time for the hydromoth/audiomoth to write. So when you do a continuous recording you need to experiment a little. I'm sure there... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
Congratulations! My first hydromoth was just arrived yesterday and so excited! Looking forward for the update from your project!!! |
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Acoustics, Animal Movement, Climate Change, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors, Software Development, Latin America Community | 1 year ago | |
If you have the resources, I would suggest testing the sensitivity and directionality of the system at relevant frequencies both with and without an external mic, and let the... |
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Acoustics | 1 year ago | |
Totally agree.Inititally sceptical until I saw Helena and Graeme were involved.MJ |
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Acoustics, Citizen Science, Community Base, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 year 1 month ago |
Auto ID Software for NA Amphibians?
20 July 2024 3:57am
24 July 2024 6:15pm
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 software and packages in @tessa_rhinehart 's helpful list too! Some more recent options that I don't think are on that yet are Whombat and gibbonNetR (which uses the 'Torch for R' ecosystem).
Also, Raven has template- and energy-based detectors you could try as well. The monitoR and warbleR packages allow you to do template-based detections too. BirdNET is integrated into Raven now as well.
You can also try Kaleidoscope's native clustering function.
Agree with you that there's definitely not enough resources for frog detection though! I'm assuming the Australian one you found is FrogID? There is also AnuraSet, but this is for neotropical frogs.
High quality field deployable playback devices - acoustic and ultrasonic: do they exist?
29 June 2024 6:34am
16 July 2024 12:16am
Thanks so much Brett! I'll look them up and get in touch with any questions. They look great.
16 July 2024 12:18am
Thanks Akiba. We're interested in investigating sounds that attract predators at close ranges. Mainly from acoustic up to around 100kHz. Perhaps if you sent me your email I can discuss further?
24 July 2024 5:24pm
Hi @BrettMargoSupplies this product seems like a fantastic addition to The Inventory, WILDLABS' wiki-style discovery platform for conservation technology. Adding a product is quite straightforward. Here is a user guide.
Looking for interview participants for research on AI Conservation & the CBD
23 July 2024 1:45pm
Questions for Biologists relating to system requirements in acoustic research
6 July 2024 3:54am
21 July 2024 7:49pm
Hey @jamie_mac
These are FPODs from Chelonia was an exceptional read. I love the implementation and would have a great time developing systems like that. Very clever method for low power detection and would provide an ultra-fast turnaround for recording, where AI would take an entire detection window timescale to start recording. It does also make sense that marine environments would be an exceptionally difficult place for species detection.
I am interested in your idea of an OS marine ARU system. I have been doing a little research on marine acoustics and have a few ideas. This seems right up my alley. If you'd be interested in playing around with the idea and seeing if we can make something that works, I could likely make quick work with this
22 July 2024 8:19am
Hi Morgan.
We are actually at the very early stages of developing a new OS marine PAM device. This is a side project (read no funding currently) but if you're interested, I'd be happy to have a chat about what we are doing?
23 July 2024 2:40am
Yeah that would be great - I have done a little looking into it today and I have some ideas. I'd love to collab. I will DM you
Is this nature imitating humans or the other way around?
10 July 2024 2:15pm
13 July 2024 2:01pm
Hi Mike,
You ask a great question and hopefully an expert on thrush vocalisations will be able to answer you more precisely than I can. However, what I can tell you is that many species of song birds are constantly evolving their calls for a whole range of reasons and while there are innate call characteristics for most species, there is usually a learnt component as well which can be mimicry or simply learning to sing from the available song around them. In Australia (and I believe elsewhere) we have some examples of threatened species with drastically reduced populations that have started to forget their own song because they simply do not have enough adult birds around them from whom to learn the song. They pick up the song of other abundant species which becomes problematic when it comes time for them to breed.
In many urbanised parts of the world, birds have changed their call to find an acoustic window not occupied by anthropogenic noise
So the questions I would start with are:
Do your British blackbirds have a shortage of example calls from their own species which might lead to them changing their call?
Are your blackbirds migrating and breeding somewhere there were a shortage of teachers?
Is there that much Wolf Whistling still going on in Britain?
If blackbirds are doing as well in Britain as they are in their feral range, then I think a lack of available call teachers is unlikely. Other possibilities are that the individual has learnt a modified call because of a change in its acoustic environment, or it has emigrated (blown in) from somewhere that blackbirds have a different call dialect. Perhaps you could scour an online call library like Xeno-Canto to see if you can find a match for your local blackbird.
15 July 2024 11:00am
Many thanks. That is a useful place to start. I don't think there is any shortage of blackbirds in the UK. And they nest in our garden every year. I don't remember the last time I heard a human wolf whistle. I do hear quite a few house and car alarms and I have heard birds mimicking those. I suppose one remote possibility is that blackbirds have been nesting near a house with a tame and audible parrot or Mynah bird. Or that some wag has been constantly wolf whistling to a blackbird nest. I once taught my sister's budgie to quack and it used to do so bobbing its head manically up and down (so I can understand a bored child might do such a thing). When I was a child there was a free yet talking Magpie that seemed to delight in sitting on a garden wall and calling "hello" to the kids as they crossed the road.
Is it an issue to attach AudioMoths to Metal Towers?
15 June 2024 8:22am
19 June 2024 11:13am
There are two reasons I want to mount them on a couple towers (not all will go on towers). (1) It will be easier for our field assistants who are already heavily loaded with tasks to take them down and remount them over the year (replace batteries & microSD cards and reconfigure them b/c they are old firmware) that they are mounted. Plus there are already HOBO loggers mounted to the towers that makes it a quicker job. (2) It is an area of the park that the managers burn yearly in Jan and Feb and I want to have the AudioMoths mounted during the fires because it seems that the lorises stay in the area and I want to record vocalizations at that time.
19 June 2024 11:17am
This is very helpful, thank you! I will source some materials and run a test.
14 July 2024 4:59am
Hi Luke,
As Matthew has suggested, the best way is always to run a test run whenever you are doing something new. Put your recorders out for one or two days and see how they perform.
My only concern about metal structures is that they can make some noises on windy days. I think Matthew's suggestion of using a sound barrier can help, but you may still notice the sound in the recording. However, this may not be a big concern for your project, as I assume the noise from the tower will be in much lower frequency than the lorises.
19th Australasian Vertebrate Pest Conference 2024
12 July 2024 12:42am
Selling used ARU equipment?
9 July 2024 5:15pm
One simple way ships can protect endangered whales and tackle climate change
8 July 2024 7:19pm
Affordable acoustic monitors for "whispering" bats?
30 April 2024 8:31pm
3 May 2024 3:28pm
Hey @ccosma if you are interested in multiple cheap sensors, Phil Atkin and I are making initial batches of pippyG bat detector. They can record 4-7 days at the moment, but could be modified to fit needs.
3 May 2024 9:04pm
I think I've landed on the Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter Mini Bat 2 for now, but I'm definitely interested to see how this cheaper tech progresses
2 July 2024 6:29pm
Hi Chris - I missed this entire dialog, just to say I have successfully recorded all the"quiet" bats using pippyg / pippistrelle, but it inevitably turns into an SNR issue, and anything lower-cose always has worse SNR than more expensive kit. The upside - which is significant - is that you can deploy WAY more sensors per kilodollar spent, which gives you even better coverage than you think because if you deploy 20 and one fails, no big deal. Deploy 3 and one fails, your coverage is hammered. And at just £40 each for the pippyg static detectors from Smith Robotics, you can saturate an area with sensing / recording technology.
Game-changing Bat Detectors to Hit Global Market
2 July 2024 1:18pm
NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!
17 June 2024 11:33am
17 June 2024 12:57pm
17 June 2024 7:40pm
Deep learning & bioacoustics postdoc in Cape Town, South Africa
14 June 2024 1:52pm
Postdoctoral Research Associate: Bioacoustics & population modeling
11 June 2024 9:35pm
Fully funded PhD in AI biodiversity monitoring
11 June 2024 1:07pm
VIHAR-2024 deadline extension, June 30th (Interspeech satellite event)
5 June 2024 10:30am
5 June 2024 3:05pm
Thanks for sharing this @nkundiushuti ! I think this post would be better suited as an event, that way it will show up on the WILDLABS event calendar page. Let me know if you have any questions on how to make an event post! You just click the +Post button in the top right corner, then click "event."
7 June 2024 8:29am
hi Alex!! I already posted the event, I just wanted to posted an update: the deadline was extended.
7 June 2024 1:45pm
Fantastic!!
New WILDLABS Funding & Finance group
5 June 2024 3:24pm
5 June 2024 4:14pm
6 June 2024 1:38am
6 June 2024 4:16am
Apply! 2024 Conservation Tech Award
3 June 2024 3:51pm
Bioacoustics and AI 101
29 May 2024 2:21pm
4th African Bioacoustics Community Conference
29 May 2024 1:50pm
2nd Colombian Congress on Bioacoustics and Ecoacoustics
28 May 2024 9:20pm
XIII Congreso Iberoamericano de Acústica
28 May 2024 9:07pm
9th Workshop On Detection and Classification of Acoustic Scenes and Events
28 May 2024 8:57pm
32nd European Signal Processing Conference
28 May 2024 8:44pm
5th World Ecoacoustics Congress
28 May 2024 8:07pm
Mounting Electret Microphone
20 May 2024 6:20pm
24 May 2024 6:03pm
If you search Digikey for a 'strain relief' you should be able to find a rubber grommet that will hold that mic without any additional machining. A blob of silicone will adhesive and waterproof, I always like stuff to do at least two things. It's also vibration reducing on the mic. You may want to either 'shotgun' mic by putting it at the end of a tube, that will block a lot of ambient also. Unless it whistles like a bottle in the wind, that might be a problem later lol. Or use a dish as a focus.
Uploading External Recordings for Templates?
23 May 2024 4:52pm
23 May 2024 9:15pm
Hi Cortney!
I'm Carly, the Science Outreach Lead at Arbimon :)
I wanted to just point out that we have support docs and help pages at help.arbimon.org and also a link to contact us directly for help!
Regarding the error you're getting with the upload, it's probably easiest to switch over to email so I can get more information on the project and look into it on the backend. I would also recommend using the Uploader App rather than the web uploader, if you're not already.
But your idea is correct, we have many users who import renamed Xeno-Canto files to Arbimon to use as templates!
What's your email? We can continue the convo to get you set up!
23 May 2024 10:27pm
Thanks Carly! I had reviewed some of the help files, but clearly not the right ones!
My email is deanc5697@my.uwstout.edu
24 July 2024 5:12pm
Hi Cortney,
I recommend exploring the tools developed by Kitzes Lab, such as OpenSoundscape, which can be used for the automatic detection of anurans. Here's a reference paper that might be useful. You might also consider reaching out directly to Justin Kitzes @jkitzes for more specialized advice.
Also here is a another paper that use BirdNet to automatically detect the bullfrog presence.
Best of luck with your analyses!