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Acoustics / Feed

Acoustic monitoring is one of our biggest and most active groups, with members collecting, analysing, and interpreting acoustic data from across species, ecosystems, and applications, from animal vocalizations to sounds from our natural and built environment

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How do I strategically allocate drones for conservation?

WILDLABS Team
Our tenth and final Tech Tutor of Season 2 is Harvard University PhD candidate, Elizabeth Bondi, who tackled the question, "How do I strategically allocate drones for conservation?". Watch it on the WILDLABS Youtube...

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Audiomoth and Natterjack Monitoring (UK)

Is anyone aware of anything that has been published, or anyone who is using Audiomoth (or similar) to monitor Natterjack toad calling at night? Or using it to monitor any night-...

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Hi Sarah, I'm curently working on the sound identification of native and introduced frogs in the UK. I need another season of recordings, and a lot more recordings of Natterjack's, but my aim is to build these into the BTO Acoustic Pipeline  hopefully later this year - alongside bats, small mammals, bush-crickets etc to also identify these automatically when they are recorded as 'by-catch.' https://www.bto.org/pipeline. 

Hi Alex, I'm not sure what problems there could be with aliasiing and harmonics using a low sample rate, and may depend I guess on how the recordings are processed later on, but I've enclosed a spectrogram of a typical recording below, and can send you some example recordings if useful. Perhaps to use a sample rate of about 10 kHz.., but it's not something that I think about - I always use an excessive sample rate (24 kHz for anurans).

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EarthHz tool

Awesome tools are out there for bioacoustic monitoring - so jazzed about the growing acoustic community! Here's another one the Songs of Adaptation project...

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warbleR / R packages for bioacoustics forum

Hi all I have a few questions regarding R and bioacoustics packages, their usage and so on. (for example, can you add an existing Wave object to a warbleR selection table?)...

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Hi all! 

Just as a general resource, @tessa.rhinehart has a really awesome table of different bioacoustic software and R packages with their varied functionality: https://github.com/rhine3/audiomoth-guide/blob/master/resources/analysis-software.md.

I haven't worked with warbleR directly, but I've played around in monitoR and gibbonR for passive acoustic monitoring analyses. 

You might also just reach out to Marcelo (writer of the package) and ask directly...

Happy coding!

Carly

I used the package soundecology in R: URL: http://ljvillanueva.github.io/soundecology/ and  https://cran.r-project.org/package=soundecology 

This package helps to calculate several acoustic index using .WAV files. Is possible to analyses several files as same time.

Best regards!

Hi all thanks for the answers!

Carly - thanks, will have to try yours. I did the course at the Organisation of Tropical Studies with Marcelo, which was awesome, but this is not something he's keen on answering, I think he has other ways of doing it. Sorting it out on Github atm. Hope your moving terabytes of data is going well :)

domingos - thank you, I do know about this one, but having a selection table in warbleR opens up to a lot of various other options that can be really useful. Will keep you updated.

Thanks

Axel

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Workshop: Analyses of acoustic telemetry data with R

European Tracking Network
Join the European Tracking Network on January 18th 2021 at 2 PM Central European Time (1 PM GMT) for a free workshop on standardized analyses of acoustic telemetry data using the R packages actel and RSP!  The actel...

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Analyzing sounds of flying insects

Dear all, I have a short question with the hope of getting back long answers: Is anyone working in the field of detecting and analyzing sounds of flying insects (e.g. flies...

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this guys has been around a long and has some neat stuff http://songsofinsects.com/about

but sure looks like a wide-open area of research ...

Tom Dally at Leeds University UK is doing work in this area. I dont think he has anything published yet but his preliminary results are interesting (saw them at a workshop).

https://biologicalsciences.leeds.ac.uk/school-of-biology/pgr/753/thomas-dally 

Tom

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Tech Tutors: How do I use pattern matching analysis to label acoustic data with RFCxArbimon?

Hi Wildlabbers, Tech Tech Tutors Season 2 continues with our third epsiode, featuring Rainforest Connection's Zephyr Gold & Marconi Campos Cerqueira‬, who tackled...

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Thanks everybody for joining today's session! I've attached the article here that describes Pattern Matching in greater detail to respond to some of the questions from today's session. 
Also, here is a link to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service for the individual who had questions about GDPR. Feel free to contact us at [email protected] with any other questions about the platform or Pattern Matching in general! 

Zephyr and Marconi, thanks for the great talk and your hard work that made this platform available to the public!! I'm experimenting with the pattern matching function to create some training data but have issues trying to get the "Jobs'' to run. I only have 18 files for each of these tests, but only 1 processed to 11.1% while two others stay at 0%. The internet connection was briefly interrupted when I created the first job and was fine later on. I can only Hide, not delete or re-run these jobs, so I'm not sure what to do. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

Hi @pmnguyen1224 , thanks for reaching out and checking out the system! We would love to help ensure that you're able to get pattern matching to work for you! I do have a few questions for you so we can replicate issue you are experiencing. Would you mind emailing us a couple screenshots and your original message above at [email protected] to get started? Or feel free to send us a chat if that's easier, by clicking on the chat icon on https://arbimon.rfcx.org/. Looking forward to supporting you moving forward!

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FIS Call for Expressions of Interest (closed)

Fisheries Innovation Scotland
WILDLABS community members are invited to submit an Expression of Interest to Fisheries Innovation Scotland (FIS) to participate in two research projects involving conservation tech's role in the future of sustainable...

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Calling all hydrophone users: Tell us what you want!

Who are we? We are Open Acoustic Devices, makers of the AudioMoth. AudioMoth is a low-cost, open-source acoustic monitoring device widely used for terrestrial...

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I’ll stick some thoughts here that other folk can maybe comment on/add to. 

 

So there are a few (obvious) differences between terrestrial and marine acoustics. 

  • Devices are immersed in a highly corrosive and conductive liquid (sea water) with strong underwater currents, fishermen, storms etc. 
  • Boat’s are usually required to deploy devices - that can mean it is much more expensive to make recordings. 
  • Ultra high frequency species and noise sources (e.g. harbour porpoise @130kHz and broadband delphinid clicks @ >200kHz and echo sounders @ 200kHz) are relatively common. 

For PAM devices that means a few things: 

  • Longevity is crucial because it can greatly decrease the cost per hour of recordings (less boat time is required). There are a few strategies for maximising this;
  1. Devices such as FPODs and SoundTraps run onboard detectors. The SoundTrap in particular can run a click detector at high frequency (up to 576khz sample rate) whilst also contiously recording at lower sample rates.  This means that it detects high frequency delphinid and porpoise clicks (and saves the waveform for further analysis) and at the same time records all lower frequency sounds where almost all of the complex tonal vocalisations of dolphins, baleen whales and anthropogenic sounds occur; these types of sounds also happen to be more difficult to accurately automatically detect (especially on low powered hardware). This strategy results in an order of magnitude reduction in data without incurring a large cost in data degradation. 
  2. Run on board compression algorithms - the SoundTrap uses an open source X3 compression algorithm that often results in four times lossless data compression. 
  3. Have the space for a lot of batteries and/or the option of an external battery pack. 
  • Sensitivity is important because you want to maximise your monitored area (again making your survey as efficient as possible). That means choosing a hydrophone, amplifier and DAQ with a low noise floor and appropriate clip level. 
  • Devices must be robust and waterproof. They should be able to survive biofouling, getting knocked on the seabed and ending up in a fishing net etc. The two common housing designs are to have a completely sealed unit with an underwater connector (often SubConn) for downloading data or having a unit which can be opened to remove memory cards and batteries. Both approaches have their advantages and failure points. For example, devices which are sealed tend to be more simple to set up but the connector is often a failure point. Devices which can be opened are serviceable at sea but they can flood and are air filled which makes them a bigger acoustic target for echolocators (and so can mess up results). 

There are also a few ‘nice to have’ options. 

  • Two sample synchronised hydrophones allowing a bearing to be calculated. This can be useful for a whole host of stuff - for example using bearing tracks to figure out how many animals might be present, improving density estimation methods and allowing an extra data dimension for classification algorithms. It also means the devices are useful for a host of other applications - e.g. towed hydrophone surveys. 
  • Depth, temperature, tilt and light sensors are inexpensive low power and produce only a few gigabytes (at the very most) of data over a survey but can provide a wealth of oceanographic data that is also helpful in acoustic monitoring. 
  • If running detectors, then recording noise is critical because it allows us to model changes in the probability of detecting animals which is often important in density estimation. 
  • Accurate clocks are useful. The  SoundTrap clock drifts around 2s per day. Although manageable, this is often a pain and consumes valuable analysis time re-syncing devices together. 
  • The ability to daisy chain devices so they can be sample synchronised and used in acoustic arrays is very handy. For example SoundTraps have been used to make large aperture hydrophone arrays to localise Kogia. DOI: 10.1016/j.dsr.2020.103233 (if achievable this may supersede point 1. )

Ok, that’s everything I can think of for now. I would be keen to hear other opinions on this, additions, disagreements etc.  Jamie





 

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Making the Most of Tech Tutors Season 2!

WILDLABS Team
WILDLABS is celebrating its five year anniversary! Throughout the rest of 2020, we'll be sharing articles, community features, and case studies showcasing the incredible projects, collaborations, and successes that this...

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WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season Two

WILDLABS Team
The WILDLABS Tech Tutors are back! Starting this December, join us for our second season and get even more answers to your biggest "how do I do that?" questions of conservation tech. Whether you're a #tech4wildlife...

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Kaggle Competition: Species Audio Detection

Rainforest Connection
Hey Acoustic Monitoring and AI for Conservation community members - don't miss Rainforest Connection's Species Auto Detection Kaggle competition, open for to competitors and teams now! Participants will have the chance...

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Weekly Event: OTN Virtual Study Hall

Ocean Tracking Network
Do you track ocean species and want to meet others who are working together to solve marine conservation's big issues with telemetry? Join the Ocean Tracking Network's weekly Virtual Study Halls, taking place every...

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Hackathon Opportunity: Vaquita Hacks

The Conservation Project International
Do you have innovative #tech4wildlife ideas that could save one of the most endangered species on earth from extinction? Apply now to join Vaquita Hack, a hackathon for students and early career conservationists!  This...

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RSEC Journal: Ecoacoustics and Biodiversity Monitoring

Remote Sensing in Ecology & Conservation
The Acoustic Monitoring community is one of the most active spaces on WILDLABS, and this particular aspect of conservation technology is rapidly growing, offering new ways to answer large-scale environmental questions...

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Looking for a collaborator with CNN/app development experience

Hi all! I am looking to collaborate with someone with expertise in building CNNs and developing smartphone apps on an acoustic monitoring & citizen science project...

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Hi Sophia, 

Just wondering what 'collaborate' means here - are you looking for a volunteer on the project or do you have budget to support the project? 

Steph  

Hi Steph! It could be either - if there was anyone out there for whom this work would be a good fit for their current role, then that would be easy, but if they needed their time paying for then I have extra funds I can apply for, which I would feel fairly confident about.

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Distinguishing Noise from Sounds - a question of recognition?

Hi there, Does anyone know of anyone researching into the identification of different noises, as opposed to distinct sounds, and can they point me at them please? By "...

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Thanks Nick,

In discussion here this issue of unknown classifications may be a widespread problem for supervised learning models? A colleague PhD candidate here is working on sound classification and mentioned the self same problem today. For example, "Cat", "Dog", "Everything else"? Is the "Everything else" state space (much) bigger than the two classifying state spaces?

One suggestion has been to take very small slices of "Squawk" of the flock of birds and use a distinct slice of frequencies from the spectrum thereof?

A problem remains however: how distinct is the combined squawk of a Quelea bird from other flocks of small birds?

Any advice on how to build specific classifiers would be most helpful?

Many thanks,

Andrew.

It sounds like you are referring to what is often called the "Cocktail Party" problem.  There has been quite a bit of research in this area, but it is a very hard problem.  I would start with the general literature on this topic as there isn't much in the conservation space. Check the hearing aid literature....picking out someone talking in a crowd of voices and sounds.  Humans are pretty amazing at this...machines not so much.  You might consider following up on some recent research at MIT:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/08/28/music-youtube-cocktail-party-problem-ai-artificial-intelligence-deep-learning/

For what its worth, it's a fascinating problem and has a lot of conservation applications.  As Nick mentioned, the biggest challenge is getting enough usable soundscapes.

Hi cosmicspittle,

 

Many thanks for the pointer, I shall discusss it with our local tech disussion group here tomorrow morning. One of the guy's, the PhD candidate in tehrapy audio analysis, will be most ineterested as well. Our project is indeed becoming ever more interesting, like an onion, peeling away layers of complexity. The key difference using our DSP methodology is that the spctrum has few if any harmonic cycles to identify, being of a low deviation level at a thin range of dB acros sht ewhole specturm. Thus each frequeny is much like th elast, giving no pattern to cross-correlate. At this stage we do not think machine learning will give us much either without some way of getting a pattern to match somewhere? One suggestion has been to take a series of very thin slices of frequencies when we know the squeak occurs using audacity as our source range, but as I say, the y-xis dB for every frequncy deviates very little, hence it is just "squelch"?

 

I hope to gain something from the research you mention, many thanks.

All the best,

Andrew.

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Training Opportunity: HarvardX TinyML Course

edX
Want to build your professional skills in TinyML? Harvard University and Google TensorFlow are offering a new online Professional Certificate program of 3 skill-building courses, designed to cover the essential "...

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Webinar: Advances in Fisheries Electronic Monitoring

SAFET
2020 Seafood and Fisheries Emerging Technology Conference kicks off their webinar series this Thursday, Sept. 24th at 5 PM PT/ 8 PM ET. Register now for New Models, New Applications: Advances in Fisheries Electronic...

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Meet the Scientists of Black Mammalogists Week!

Black Mammalogists Week
To celebrate the first Black Mammalogists Week (starting Sunday, September 13th), we talked to four of the amazing Black scientists behind this event! Find out what they had to say about their favorite (and most...

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Tech Tutors: Review Session

WILDLABS Team
Missing Tech Tutors? Us too! Catch up on every episode from Season 1, check out some of our community highlights, and find out what we loved most about launching this series in this mid-week Tech Tutors review session....

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African Bioacoustics Community Conference

African Bioacoustics Community Conference
Registration is now open to attend this year's virtual African Bioacoustics Community Conference, taking place November 2nd - 5th! Created to provide a networking forum for people working on all aspects of bioacoustic...

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Sustainable Fishing Challenges: Fishing Gear Innovations

Daniel Steadman
Today, Sustainable Fishing Challenges group leader Daniel Steadman discusses how fishing gear itself could benefit from fresh technological innovations to prevent both environmental damage and damage to species and...

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Challenge: ElephantEdge

hackster.io
Protecting elephants from conservation's most pressing issues like poaching and human-wildlife conflict requires big, bold, and innovative solutions. Hackster.io, Smart Parks, Edge Impulse, Microsoft, and several other...

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AudioMoth Water Resistant Case Design

Hi,    I’d like to share a low cost design for water resistant cases for AudioMoths that I created (instructions in the attached image). I’d say...

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Hi, do you still have some left overs of hyrdrophobic cloth? I'm currently in Mexico but a friend of mine is in UK so she can bring them to me. Thank you so much. 

Hi - I'm down to three sheets - the usable area is 12cm by 12 cm - I did post some cloth to the US and the total  price was under $5USD which I think would be 80-100 Peso but equally happy to send to your friend.  Email me [email protected] and we can sort out fine details - one thing is I'm away from home till early september. so couldn't send till then and the UK-Mexico post take about 5 days.  Best Wishes -  David Brown

Hello to you all, I hope everyone is doing ok during this Covid-19 contingency.

Jsut sharing this adaptation for the water proof case for the Audio Moth.

https://www.tetrixecology.com/single-post/Developing-an-Enclosure-for-the-AudioMoth-Acoustic-Logger---Part-1

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