Listening to ecosystems: using acoustic monitoring to track biodiversity responses to global change

The world of sound is a medium of diverse signals and cues that animals use to communicate and understand their surroundings. While this sensory environment differs greatly depending on the receiver’s physiology, it is ultimately a commons shared across animals of many sizes and intentions – including humans. Studying the soundscape gives us an opportunity to track animal populations, their interactions, and their responses to anthropogenic disturbance.

        
Much of our research has focused on a monitoring network on Ryukyu Archipelago in Japan, and particularly the island of Okinawa. There, we participate in OKEON (the Okinawa Environmental Observation Network) as a way to understand biodiversity change and interaction across trophic levels. This project, which has been ongoing since 2016, has opportunities for fieldwork and research exchanges in Japan.

We are also building partnerships with universities in South Africa, in Germany, and around the world to improve our understanding of biodiversity responses to global change. In particular, there are opportunities for student research exchanges to and from the Afromontane Research Unit in the Drakensburg Mountains of South Africa. These projects will focus on diversity change across aridity, elevation, and urbanization gradients, in collaboration with the EFTEON monitoring network.

Example Publications:

• Ross, S. R.-P. J., N. R. Friedman, M. Yoshimura, T. Yoshida, I. Donohue, E. P. Economo. 2021. Utility of acoustic indices for ecological monitoring in complex sonic environments. Ecological Indicators 121, 107114.

• Dinets, V., N. R. Friedman, M. Yoshimura, M. Ogasawara, E. P. Economo. 2020. Mammal Study 45, 353-356.

• Ross, S. R.-P. J*, N. R. Friedman*, K. L. Dudley, M. Yoshimura, T. Yoshida, E. P. Economo. 2017. Listening to ecosystems: data-rich acoustic monitoring through landscape-scale sensor networks. Ecological Research, 1-13.