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
Wildlife Acoustics
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Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI)
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I'm a Data Scientist at Western EcoSystems Technology. I am interested in AI processing and statistical modeling of acoustic data and camera trap and drone imagery.
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Apply to work on a wonderful team translating acoustic monitoring data into conservation & ecological insights!
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43 Products
Recently updated products
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Thank you @carlybatist |
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Acoustics | 4 months 2 weeks 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 | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
I dont have anything written up but I can tell what parts we used and how we tested.Its pretty straightforward, we used this M10 Enclosure Vent from Blue Robotics: Along with... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Acoustics, Camera Traps, Climate Change, East Africa Community, Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools | 4 months 2 weeks 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 | 4 months 4 weeks 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 | 5 months ago | |
Cool! My Sound Localization project has hit hackaday. The use case of fireworks localization was pure sensationalism. |
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Acoustics | 5 months 1 week 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 | 5 months 2 weeks 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 | 5 months 2 weeks 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, Biologging, Remote Sensing & GIS | 5 months 2 weeks ago | |
Thank you Stefan! Will follow up with your email shortly. |
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Acoustics, Emerging Tech, Ethics of Conservation Tech | 5 months 3 weeks ago | |
Hi Joan,Sounds like a great project! I would recommend having a look at some of the nice review literature and guidelines that are out there, like - https://www.researchgate.... |
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Acoustics | 6 months 1 week ago | |
Published this week - Sound Identification of Terrestrial Mammals of Britain & IrelandBy Neil Middleton,... |
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Acoustics | 6 months 2 weeks ago |
Alex Rogers: Acoustic Devices for Biodiversity Monitoring — Smart Forests Atlas
24 March 2023 12:28pm
In this radio episode, we speak to Alex Rogers, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Oxford. We discuss how Alex's research team developed the acoustic recording device AudioMoth, how low-cost technologies can democratise biodiversity monitoring, and how sensing technologies can lead to certain species and environments being monitored more than others.
Interviewers: Max Ritts and Michelle Westerlaken
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Catch up with The Variety Hour: March 2023
23 March 2023 11:09am
Using acoustic monitoring to track infectious disease risk
8 March 2023 1:29pm
Proposals wanted for Innovation in Practice
6 March 2023 10:34pm
AudioMoth and Song Meter Micro battery life tests
16 February 2023 4:09pm
24 February 2023 2:20pm
Hi Justin, looks like the link is not working!
24 February 2023 5:23pm
Should work now - a stray full stop snuck in there!
26 February 2023 2:58pm
Hi Justin,
Dropping in a question you've received over on twitter:
@KitzesLab Did you try comparing different SD card sizes to check if that influenced battery life?
— Lucille Chapuis (@sharkslikejazz) February 26, 2023
Hi! Nope, this report doesn't test SD card size or any other parameters like read/write speed or brand.
— Tessa Rhinehart (@TessaRhinehart) March 7, 2023
Use of passive acoustic monitoring methods to estimate poaching pressure of European turtle doves in Greece (Ionian Islands)
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New guidance - Good practice for ecoacoustic monitoring
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Research Assistants in Kitzes Lab
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Developing Two Non-invasive Survey Methods for Freshwater Ecosystems: Environmental DNA and Ecoacoustics
10 February 2023 10:41am
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 ecology/phenology, & provide guidelines for survey design.
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10 February 2023 10:38am
Research Associate - Machine Learning (Underwater Sound)
10 February 2023 10:19am
Cleaning audiomoth circuit board
17 January 2023 11:42am
28 January 2023 5:40am
I'd also add that if the boards are just dirty or dusty, you can just remove all batteries, then wash with a toothbrush and water. Air dry (or use compressed air which speeds things up greatly) and then spot clean areas that need solvent with isopropanol as Harold mentioned. Also if you don't have access to conformal coating, you can also use a non-conductive clear lacquer. The conformal coating covers all the components and prevents short circuits due to conductive water (ie: salt water) or other contaminants. However if you do use a conformal coating, make sure all cables are connected first and the device is in the exact state that it will be deployed in. Also don't conformal coat the battery connectors since you'll want to change out batteries periodically.
2 February 2023 8:13am
Hi Akiba,
thanks for your this great advice! I used the conformal coating on parts
of the PCB with exposed metal but was has hesitent using it on the "backside" with
all the resistors and transistors. Also what about the "back" of the microfon. Might this side be coated?
Do you have any experience with coatings @alex_rogers
Greetings,
Robin
9 February 2023 9:56pm
Cleaning the water damaged audiomoth boards is in full swing:
Left before, right after cleaning
Technical Officer – IMOS Animal Tracking Facility
7 February 2023 12:30pm
Commercially available connected audio sensors
2 February 2023 3:08pm
2 February 2023 3:55pm
Hi!
I am not aware of any such connected loggers/recorders but they would be nice.
The AudioMoths have been revolutionary in providing audologging at a low cost but they take a lot of "data muling" (carrying SD cards in and out of the field sites) and swapping of batteries.
Cheers,
2 February 2023 7:50pm
Hi Lars, thanks for the response. We are using lots of Song Meter Micro's atm and they have proved to be resilient. Just need something which doesn't involve going on site regularly - but get the data off.
3 February 2023 7:04pm
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 been used for detecting e.g., gunshots or chainsaws (using edge computing) and then sending positive detections/alerts to folks on the ground. RFCx also hosts Arbimon, a free, no-code software platform that facilitates analysis of audio data as well. Happy to chat more if you'd like to talk further about it!
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19 January 2023 11:55pm
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International Congress for Conservation Biology
16 January 2023 2:53pm
Potential collaboration: integrating acoustics and NASA airborne remote sensing to monitor animal and habitat biodiversity
30 November 2022 1:17am
10 December 2022 6:18am
Although not a professor, I know a fair number through long-term association with scgis.org, and personally am using Audiomoths in collaboration with the UC System at the Blue Oak Reserve.
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve
Blue Oak Ranch Reserve (BORR) lies within the Upper Sonoran Life Zone. Approximately two-thirds of the site is drained by tributaries of Arroyo Aguague, itself a tributary of Coyote Creek (via Penitencia Creek), which flows into southern San Francisco Bay.
Natural Reserve SystemI've developed a fair bit of scripts to automatically crunch things using 'Birdnet', as per:
GitHub - kahst/BirdNET-Analyzer: BirdNET analyzer for scientific audio data processing.
BirdNET analyzer for scientific audio data processing. - kahst/BirdNET-Analyzer
GitHubI can certainly facilitate dialogue with the Cornell Ornithology lab if you do not have those connections already.
My own background is in remote sensing (SAR, etc) and currently working in machine learning (albeit for health care currently..) this project sounds fascinating!
Are you already working with Audubon, and/or people in the UC System?
10 December 2022 6:22am
I'll also note that I'm planning to work with a few parks in the DRC/Congo basin to deploy Audiomoths alongside their camera traps.
13 January 2023 12:24pm
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 located at pine forests of different post-fire regeneration stage (>20 years since last burn, burnt in 2001, 2009, 2018) in Greece. These are typical Mediterranean forest pine landscapes - but certainly not in California or South Africa. We did not have plans at present to continue collecting data - since we got all seasons of one year, but may be the existing data or future data from these or similar areas here in Greece would be relevant to what you wish to accomplish with the airborne measurements?
Feel free to drop me a line.
All the best,
Christos
New Paper - The sound of the illegal: Applying bioacoustics for long-term monitoring of illegal cattle in protected areas
12 January 2023 5:20pm
This study uses passive acoustic monitoring to record the patterns of illegal cattle occurrence within protected areas in the Brazilian Pantanal.
WEBINAR: Earth, Wind & Fire: Amphibian Response to Wildfires, Windfarms, & More
11 January 2023 5:59pm
6 March 2023 1:30pm