Search

This thesis focuses on the research through design method to investigate novel approaches to increasing awareness and engagement with the domestic soundscape in the living room. The outline of the research is based on the notion of individuals’ modern indoor activity and presence, which introduces new sounds within the home, informed by existing literature identifying design gaps between the domestic soundscape and human- computer interactions. Two prototypes were created out of various concepts, observations, and interviews. The final prototype establishes a foundation for comprehending user feedback while utilising technical solutions with the incorporation of implicit interaction in a tangible form to display the domestic soundscape. The result concluded challenges in effectively conveying the story of the soundscape through representation, which highlighted how elusive and subjective awareness is especially in domestic soundscape. This thesis provides a basis for future iterations and investigation on the topics in the fields of interaction design and human- computer interactions.

[Introduction]: In Latin America, the sensitive tropical biodiversity found outside of protected wilderness areas is under threat. In Costa Rica, the payment for environmental services (PSA) represents a mechanism to protect forests on private farms, but it lacks specific indicators on the state of biodiversity and forest conservation. [Objective]: To analyze the use of acoustic monitoring for ecosystem assessment at 11 sites in the Osa Peninsula, nine on private farms, and two sites within Corcovado National Park. [Methods]: Soundscapes were recorded from May 25 to June 1, 2021, using acoustic recorders. It was analyzed the behavior of six acoustic indices at each sampling site and applied an automated detection analysis of vocalizations of two representative bird species of the area. [Results]: It was found that the most fragmented sites presented higher activity, energy, and acoustic diversity, possibly due to edge effects and ecotones present, as well as a high forest component in the surrounding matrix. Automated vocalization detection indicated that the species Hylopezus perspicillatus turned out to be more sensitive to differences in the landscape than Trogon bairdii. [Conclusions]: The use of acoustic indices, although it associates features of the degree of conservation, was not a differentiating element of the quality of the ecosystem in the evaluated farms. The monitoring ofspecies through the detection of their vocalizations was promising. A careful and rigorous sampling design, with moresampling points per site, is recommended to achieve accurate measurements and avoid bias in the analysis., [Introducción]: En Latinoamérica, la sensible biodiversidad tropical que se encuentra fuera de las áreas silvestres protegidas está bajo amenaza. En Costa Rica, el pago por servicios ambientales (PSA) representa un mecanismo para proteger bosques en fincas privadas, pero carece de indicadores específicos sobre el estado de la biodiversidad y de conservación de los bosques. [Objetivo]: Analizar el uso del monitoreo acústico para la evaluación de ecosistemas en 11 sitios en la Península de Osa: 9 en fincas privadas y 2 sitios dentro del Parque Nacional Corcovado. [Metodología]: Se grabaron paisajes sonoros del 25 de mayo al 01 de junio del 2021, utilizando grabadoras acústicas. Se estudia el comportamiento de 6 índices acústicos en cada sitio de muestreo y se aplicó un análisis de detección automatizada de vocalizaciones de 2 especies de aves representativas de la zona. [Resultados]: Se encuentra que los sitios más fragmentados presentaron mayor actividad, energía y diversidad acústica, posiblemente por efectos de borde y ecotonos presentes, así como un alto componente de bosque en la matriz circundante. La detección automatizada de vocalizaciones indicó que la especie Hylopezus perspicillatus resultó ser más sensible a las diferencias en el paisaje que Trogon bairdii. [Conclusiones]: El uso de índices acústicos, aunque asocia rasgos del grado de conservación del bosque, no resultó un elemento diferenciador de la calidad del ecosistema en las fincas evaluadas, pero el monitoreo de especies mediante la detección de sus vocalizaciones sí resultó promisorio. Es recomendable un diseño de muestreo metódico y riguroso, con más puntos de muestreo por sitio, para lograr mediciones precisas y evitar sesgos en el análisis.&nbsp, [Introdução]: Na América Latina, a sensível biodiversidade tropical encontrada fora das áreas selvagens protegidas está ameaçada. Na Costa Rica, o pagamento por serviços ambientais (PSA) representa um mecanismo para proteger as florestas em explorações agrícolas privadas, mas carece de indicadores específicos sobre o estado da biodiversidade e da conservação das florestas. [Objetivo]: Analisar o uso do monitoramento acústico para avaliação de ecossistemas em 11 sítios da Península de Osa: 9 em fazendas privadas e 2 sítios dentro do Parque Nacional do Corcovado. [Metodologia]: As paisagens sonoras foram gravadas de 25 de maio a 1º de junho de 2021, utilizando gravadores acústicos. O comportamento de 6 índices acústicos é estudado em cada local de amostragem e foi aplicada uma análise automatizada de detecção de vocalizações de 2 espécies de aves representativas da área. [Resultados]: Verifica-se que os locais mais fragmentados apresentaram maior atividade, energia e diversidade acústica, possivelmente devido aos efeitos de borda e ecótonos presentes, bem como um elevado componente florestal na matriz circundante. A detecção automatizada de vocalização indicou que Hylopezus perspicillatus era mais sensível às diferenças de paisagem do que Trogon bairdii. [Conclusões]: A utilização de índices acústicos, embora associe características do grau de conservação florestal, não foi um elemento diferenciador da qualidade do ecossistema nas fazendas avaliadas, mas o monitoramento das espécies através da detecção de suas vocalizações foi promissor. Recomenda-se um desenho amostral metódico e rigoroso, com mais pontos de amostragem por local, para obter medições precisas e evitar vieses na análise.

© The Author(s), 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Lillis, A., & Mooney, T. Sounds of a changing sea: temperature drives acoustic output by dominant biological sound-producers in shallow water habitats. Frontiers in Marine Science, 9, (2022): 960881, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.960881., The ocean’s soundscape is fundamental to marine ecosystems, not only as a source of sensory information critical to many ecological processes but also as an indicator of biodiversity and habitat health. Yet, little is known about how ecoacoustic activity in marine habitats is altered by environmental changes such as temperature. The sounds produced by dense colonies of snapping shrimp dominate temperate and tropical coastal soundscapes worldwide and are a major driver broadband sound pressure level (SPL) patterns. Field recordings of soundscape patterns from the range limit of a snapping shrimp distribution showed that rates of snap production and associated SPL were closely positively correlated to water temperature. Snap rates changed by 15-60% per °C change in regional temperature, accompanied by fluctuations in SPL between 1-2 dB per °C. To test if this relationship was due to a direct effect of temperature, we measured snap rates in controlled experiments using two snapping shrimp species dominant in the Western Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico (Alpheus heterochaelis and A. angulosus). Snap rates were measured for shrimp held at different temperatures (across 10-30 °C range, with upper limit 2°C above current summer mean temperatures) and under different social groupings. Temperature had a significant effect on shrimp snap rates for all social contexts tested (individuals, pairs, and groups). For individuals and shrimp groups, snap production more than doubled between mid-range (20°C) and high (30°C) temperature treatments. Given that snapping shrimp sounds dominate the soundscapes of diverse habitats, including coral reefs, rocky bottoms, seagrass, and oyster beds, the strong influence of temperature on their activity will potentially alter soundscape patterns broadly. Increases in ambient sound levels driven by elevated water temperatures has ecological implications for signal detection, communication, and navigation in key coastal ecosystems for a wide rang, Financial support was provided by NSF Biological Oceanography Grant #1536782, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Interdisciplinary Award and Postdoctoral Scholar Programs.

Swedish National Monitoring program on harbour porpoises

The distribution ranges and spatio-temporal patterns in the occurrence and activity of boreal bats are yet largely unknown due to their cryptic lifestyle and lack of suitable and efficient study methods. We approached the issue by establishing a permanent passive-acoustic sampling setup spanning the area of Finland to gain an understanding on how latitude affects bat species composition and activity patterns in northern Europe. The recorded bat calls were semi-automatically identified for three target taxa; Myotis spp., Eptesicus nilssonii or Pipistrellus nathusii and the seasonal activity patterns were modeled for each taxa across the seven sampling years (2015–2021). We found an increase in activity since 2015 for E. nilssonii and Myotis spp. For E. nilssonii and Myotis spp. we found significant latitude -dependent seasonal activity patterns, where seasonal variation in patterns appeared stronger in the north. Over the years, activity of P. nathusii increased during activity peak in June and late season but decreased in mid season. We found the passive-acoustic monitoring network to be an effective and cost-efficient method for gathering bat activity data to analyze spatio-temporal patterns. Long-term data on the composition and dynamics of bat communities facilitates better estimates of abundances and population trend directions for conservation purposes and predicting the effects of climate change.

Monitoring of forest restoration efforts is essential to ensure healthy, self-sustaining tropical rainforests. Passive acoustic monitoring is used to monitor vocal activity of birds, which play a key role in forest ecosystems as seed dispersers. Communication between birds seems most profitable during a peak of bird singing in the morning, known as the dawn chorus. Anthropogenic disturbances leading to increased light levels affect the timing of this chorus in individual species. This research sheds a light on the effect of forest restoration on the dawn chorus using automatic detection methods to identify bird sounds from acoustic data. Machine learning methods like clustering and pattern matching were used alongside a manual analysis to describe the dawn chorus in protected forests as well as restoration sites around Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. Restoration sites were found to have lower species richness and increased interference from insect sounds. No difference was found between timing of the dawn chorus in both forest habitats. This can possibly be assigned to changes in community composition and decreased detectability of species in insect-dominated landscapes. Future research could further disentangle these effects, by filtering of acoustic data, development of workflow pathways and the use of stronger machine learning methods that allow for more reliable species-specific detection. In the current state of automatic acoustic methods, close cooperation with local experts is recommended to achieve effective monitoring in tropical rainforests.

The European catfish (Silurus glanis) has been described as an invasive species exerting a relevant impact on the native fauna of the ecosystems where it is introduced. However, the lack of long-term data and the low catchability of this species with traditional methods have often made it difficult to evaluate its real impact. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the invasive European catfish on the fish community of the Torrejón reservoir (Tagus River, Spain) using both direct fishing and indirect hydroacoustic methods. This study is the result of eleven years of monitoring. The results evidence the impact of European catfish on the reservoir fish assemblage, especially on the Iberian barbel (Luciobarbus bocagei) which significantly decreased its abundance and biomass from 2010 to 2020. The size structure of the fish assemblages in the reservoir allowed the use of hydroacoustic methodology to discriminate and monitor the population of European catfish. Throughout the 11 years of study, statistically significant differences were identified in the abundance of European catfish as a function of the reservoir´s area (dam - tail axis) and of the limnological period (summer vs. winter), while no significant differences were found in relation to bathymetry (surface - bottom axis). We can conclude that S. glanis has currently established in the Torrejón reservoir leading to the decrease of the Iberian barbel population, the only autochthonous species that persisted in the reservoir and dominated the fish community before the appearance of European catfish.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, humanity temporarily retired from the outdoors. The strict lockdown measures in Spain coincided with the onset of the nesting season of birds, thriving in an unusually quiet environment. Here, we have recorded in forests near San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Central Spain) during the lockdown period in 2020, and the closer to normal spring in 2021. We found strong differences in soundscapes by recording year and location, regardless of the effects of meteorology and human mobility. Species altered their behaviour by increasing their calling intensity during 2021 to cope with higher noise levels, however, acoustic activity was generally less diverse and complex. The difference between years was particularly detrimental for the highest-pitched biophony in 2021. We interpret that an extreme snowfall, Filomena, may have caused a mortality event with lasting effects in the community during the 2021 spring. Since extreme climatic events are likely going to keep happening in the area due to climate change, our data is a useful baseline to guide future conservation efforts, and examine how our activity and climate change are changing the soundscapes of Spanish Mediterranean forests.

Anthropogenic climate change poses an existential threat to biodiversity that is compounded by habitat conversion, disease, and other disturbances. Understanding the ecological needs of sensitive species and identifying priority habitat is vital for wildlife conservation. However, there is growing recognition that the traditional conservation emphasis on protected areas is not sufficient to sustain biodiversity. We also need to understand the habitat value of working lands and incorporate these areas in conservation planning. My dissertation explores these themes through the lens of bats in the California coast redwood ecosystem. Bats are extremely sensitive to climate and habitat disturbance, making them useful indicators of ecosystem health. Coast redwood forests may provide critical habitat for bats under climate change because coastal effects on temperature and fog patterns buffer the coast from the extreme temperatures and drought experienced inland. Although 13 species of bats are found in coast redwood forests, bats are an especially elusive taxon and much about their basic ecology remains unknown. In addition to climate change, hibernating bat populations in North America are threatened by an emerging disease called white-nose syndrome. The disease has newly spread to the west coast, heightening the urgency to understand the ecology of western bat populations.I conducted research on the factors shaping habitat suitability for bats across the coast redwood ecosystem, the environmental drivers behind species activity, and how species activity patterns shift seasonally. In Chapter 1, a large landscape field study demonstrates that both working forests and protected areas provide valuable summer bat habitat, but species vary significantly in their sensitivity to microclimate and forest habitat conditions. In Chapter 2, I complement conventional, ground-level acoustic survey techniques with canopy-level monitoring. This comparison reveals that treetop deployment

Over the last decade, an increasing number of studies have used soundscapes to address diverse ecological questions. Sound represents one of the few sources of information capable of providing in situ insights into processes occurring within opaque soil matrices. To date, the use of soundscapes for soil macrofauna monitoring has been experimentally tested only in controlled laboratory environments. Here we assess the validity of laboratory predictions and explore the use of soil soundscape proxies for monitoring soil macrofauna (i.e., earthworm) activities in an outdoor context. In a common garden experiment in northern Sweden, we constructed outdoor mesocosm plots (N = 36) containing two different Arctic vegetation types (meadow and heath) and introduced earthworms to half of these plots. Earthworms substantially altered the ambient soil soundscape under both vegetation types, as measured by both traditional soundscape indices and frequency band power levels, although their acoustic impacts were expressed differently in heath versus meadow soils. While these findings support the as-of-yet untapped promise of using belowground soundscape analyses to monitor soil ecosystem health, direct acoustic emissions from earthworm activities appear to be an unlikely proxy for tracking worm activities at daily timescales. Instead, earthworms indirectly altered the soil soundscape by ‘re-engineering’ the soil matrix: an effect that was dependent on vegetation type. Our findings suggest that long-term (i.e., seasonal) earthworm activities in natural soil settings can likely be monitored indirectly via their impacts on soundscape measures and acoustic indices. Analyzing soil soundscapes may enable larger-scale monitoring of high-latitude soils and is directly applicable to the specific case of earthworm invasions within Arctic soils, which has recently been identified as a potential threat to the resilience of high-latitude ecosystems. Soil soundscapes could also offer a novel mea

Swedish National Monitoring program on harbour porpoises

Acoustic monitoring of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) has shown a high sensitivity to stochastic defects, e.g., cracks, pores and lack of fusion (LOF), and melting instability. The advantage of this method is the possibility to filter raw data and extract acoustic signal features for the data analysis, thus minimizing data and computing time. In this research during the build of components from hot work tool steel powder, acoustic signals and powder bed images were acquired for post-process data analysis and search for correlations with LOF. Different densities caused by LOF were obtained by changing the shielding gas velocity. In the analysis, selected combinations of features with the relationship between the build phases and the final properties such as density and surface roughness, were investigated. For the current dataset prediction of the optimal state showed an accuracy of 98%. This investigation suggests the applicability of the smart data-centric machine learning method to predict the relationship of process parameters, monitoring signals, and material properties. © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

High boulder yield can occur due to the mismatching of explosive and rock wave impedance. A study has been carried out of methods of measuring rock wave impedance, rock strength point loading, and detonation wave velocity to obtain more accurate input parameters. An intelligent acoustic monitoring multipurpose instrument (DYF-2) was installed at the Dexing open cast copper mine (Jianxi, China) to monitor longitudinal blast wave velocity. Image processing was carried out to enhance the contrast of the image of muck accumulation, and the ratio of different particle sizes was calculated. The crushing degree and characteristics of a rock mound were compared, and the parameters that could reflect the basic characteristics of crushing distribution were determined. The results suggested that, combined with watershed image segmentation technology, Rosin-Rammler and Gates-Gaudin-Schuhmann distribution functions are effective methods to analyse the distribution of rock fragmentation. A support vector machine regression model can be used to predict and control the blasting effect. The blasting effect was found to be the most efficient when the rock wave impedance and the explosive wave impedance were both 2.51., High boulder yield can occur due to the mismatching of explosive and rock wave impedance. A study has been carried out of methods of measuring rock wave impedance, rock strength point loading, and detonation wave velocity to obtain more accurate input parameters. An intelligent acoustic monitoring multipurpose instrument (DYF-2) was installed at the Dexing open cast copper mine (Jianxi, China) to monitor longitudinal blast wave velocity. Image processing was carried out to enhance the contrast of the image of muck accumulation, and the ratio of different particle sizes was calculated. The crushing degree and characteristics of a rock mound were compared, and the parameters that could reflect the basic characteristics of crushing distribution were determined. The results suggested that, combined with watershed image segmentation technology, Rosin-Rammler and Gates-Gaudin-Schuhmann distribution functions are effective methods to analyse the distribution of rock fragmentation. A support vector machine regression model can be used to predict and control the blasting effect. The blasting effect was found to be the most efficient when the rock wave impedance and the explosive wave impedance were both 2.51.

A study was carried out in a longwall mine in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (Poland), using two methods of determining the value of the attenuation coefficient (AC) at the longwall face using seismoacoustic equipment. The values of the AC measured in two operation stages were compared under similar stress conditions but longwall face lengths of 190 m and 300 m. The same attenuation results were obtained in both stages during stationary observation of the longwall, which were comparable with in-situ measurements. When the wall was over 200 m long, the damping coefficient should be determined before the commencement of operation. When it was below 200 m, the measurements carried out with stationary equipment, using the adopted emission model, provided an equivalent value but were technically easier. It is suggested that the state of seismic hazard cannot be determined unequivocally using the value of the damping coefficient, but zones of stress concentration can be identified by treating the relationship of damping with stresses as one of correlation. This was confirmed by the method of comprehensive hazard assessment applied by the mine. Measurements of damping coefficients in the coal seam should always be averaged and the measurements repeated cyclically depending on changes in geological conditions., A study was carried out in a longwall mine in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (Poland), using two methods of determining the value of the attenuation coefficient (AC) at the longwall face using seismoacoustic equipment. The values of the AC measured in two operation stages were compared under similar stress conditions but longwall face lengths of 190 m and 300 m. The same attenuation results were obtained in both stages during stationary observation of the longwall, which were comparable with in-situ measurements. When the wall was over 200 m long, the damping coefficient should be determined before the commencement of operation. When it was below 200 m, the measurements carried out with stationary equipment, using the adopted emission model, provided an equivalent value but were technically easier. It is suggested that the state of seismic hazard cannot be determined unequivocally using the value of the damping coefficient, but zones of stress concentration can be identified by treating the relationship of damping with stresses as one of correlation. This was confirmed by the method of comprehensive hazard assessment applied by the mine. Measurements of damping coefficients in the coal seam should always be averaged and the measurements repeated cyclically depending on changes in geological conditions.

In this dissertation, I investigate the roles that aquatically derived resources play in the community structure and foraging behavior of wild birds in high-elevation regions of the Sierra Nevada mountains of California. Wilderness designations protect ecologically important areas from intense human development, which is critical to conserving them but also poses a challenge in accessibility to studying them. To address the need for data-rich methodology in wilderness, I piloted the use of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) to collect data on the community composition and activity of birds breeding in alpine areas in 6 headwater basins throughout Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI). In my first chapter, I investigated the potential for acoustic indices—mathematical measurements of variation in acoustic activity—to be used as proxies for avian diversity within three large acoustic datasets from U.S. National Parks that differ in spatial breadth and gamma diversity. Using a Random Forest with several widely used acoustic indices to predict observed species richness in 5,670 minutes of audio recording, I found that acoustic indices predict coarse but not fine differences in species richness. I discuss opportunities and limits in the application of acoustic indices as reliable measures of avian diversity in research and management contexts. Trout introductions to historically fishless high-elevation lakes cause trophic cascades within the aquatic system, resulting in simplified, species-poor food webs and major reductions in aquatic insect emergences. In the Sierra Nevada, over half of all historically fishless lakes now contain self-sustaining populations of trout, but the effects of this landscape-level disturbance on the surrounding terrestrial food web are largely unknown. In my second chapter, I investigated whether introduced trout impact the adjacent avian community via a reduction in aquatic insect emergences, a potentially valuable food source for bir

Monitoring the vocal behavior of owls is challenging because of their nocturnal habits and limited vocal activity. Here, we evaluated the use of passive acoustic monitoring coupled with automated signal recognition software to monitor the spontaneous vocal activity of the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (Glaucidium brasilianum) over a complete annual cycle at five recording stations in the Brazilian Pantanal. The vocal behavior of this species was concentrated during the crepuscular periods, with highest vocal activity in the hours prior to sunrise. The Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl was vocally active throughout the year, but the species showed a peak of activity from June to August. Paired Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl males tend to perform territorial calls less often during the nestling period, which may partly explain the significant decrease in the vocal activity after August. Our results suggest that the breeding period of the species starts in June, and the nesting phase probably occurs from September onwards, when the wet season starts. The first rains in seasonal tropical areas are usually associated with an increase in food availability, which may explain the species´ breeding period onset. Future surveys aiming to monitor the species, avoiding the use of broadcast calls, should be performed before sunrise between June and August, when the vocal activity was maximal.

Detecting presence and inferring absence are both critical in species monitoring and management. False-negatives in any survey methodology can have significant consequences when conservation decisions are based on incomplete results. Marsh birds are notoriously difficult to detect, and current survey methods rely on traditional labor-intensive methods, and, more recently, passive acoustic monitoring. We investigated the efficiency of passive acoustic monitoring as a survey tool for the cryptic and poorly understood Eastern Black Rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) analyzing data from two sites collected at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, South Carolina, USA. We demonstrate two new techniques to automate the reviewing and analysis of long-duration acoustic monitoring data. First, we used long-duration false-color spectrograms to visualize the 20 days of recording and to confirm presence of Black Rail "kickee-doo" calls. Second, we used a machine learning model (Random Forest in regression mode) to automate the scanning of 480 consecutive hours of acoustic recording and to investigate spatial and temporal presence. Detection of the Black Rail call was confirmed in the long-duration false-color spectrogram and the call recognizer correctly predicted Black Rail in 91% of the first 316 top-ranked predictions at one site. From ten days of continuous acoustic recordings, Black Rail calls were detected on only four consecutive days. Long-duration false-color spectrograms were effective for detecting Black Rail calls because their tendency to vocalize over consecutive minutes leaves a visible trace in the spectrogram. The call recognizer performed effectively when the Black Rail call was the dominant acoustic activity in its frequency band. We demonstrate that combining false-color spectrograms with a machine-learned recognizer creates a more efficient monitoring tool than a stand-alone species-specific call recognizer, with particular utility for species whose voca

This dataset is composed of correlated audio recordings and labels of ingestive jaw movements performed during grazing by dairy cattle. Using a wireless microphone, we recorded sounds of three Holstein dairy cows grazing short and tall alfalfa and short and tall fescue. Two experts in grazing behavior identified and labeled the start, end, and type of each jaw movement: bite, chew, and chew-bite (compound movement). For each segment of raw audio corresponding to a jaw movement we computed four well-known features: amplitude, duration, zero crossings, and envelope symmetry. These features are in the dataset and can be used as inputs to build automated methods for classification of ingestive jaw movements. Cow's grazing behavior can be monitored and characterized by identifying and analyzing these masticatory events.

Growing developmental activities, such as hydropower construction, farm roads, and other human activities, are affecting the critically endangered white-bellied heron (WBH). Out of a known global population of 60, 28 individuals inhabit the river basin area and freshwater lakes and ponds of Bhutan. Several constraints impede continuous monitoring of endangered species, such as the isolated and cryptic nature of the species and the remoteness of its habitat; to date, there are no long-term reference data or techniques implemented for continuous monitoring of this species. In this study, we designed acoustic detection and habitat characterisation methods using long-duration recordings from three habitat areas in Bhutan. Acoustic indices were extracted and used to implement a species-specific call detector and to generate habitat soundscape representations. Using WBH calls annotated in month-long recordings from a known site, a novel indices-based detector was implemented and tested. A total of 960 hr of continuous audio recordings from three habitats in Bhutan were analysed. We found that a species call detector implemented using a combination of acoustic indices (that includes measures of spectral and temporal entropy and different angles of spectral ridges) has a correct detection rate of 81%. Additionally, visual inspection of the species’ acoustic habitat using long-duration false-colour spectrograms enabled qualitative assessment of acoustic habitat structure and other dominant acoustic events. This study proposes a combined approach of species acoustic detection and habitat soundscape analysis for holistic acoustic monitoring of endangered species. As a direct outcome of this work, we documented acoustic reference data on the critically endangered WBH from multiple habitat areas and have analysed its temporal vocalisation patterns across sites.

Acoustic monitoring provides opportunities for scaling up bioacoustic study of vocal animals to greater temporal and spatial scales. However, the large amounts of audio that can be easily and efficiently collected necessitates automated methods of analysis to extract useful ecological data. Acoustic indices have been used in spectrographic visualisation of long environmental recordings to successfully identify many biological sounds from their acoustic patterns and features. In particular, the choruses of several frog species are conspicuous in these spectrogram images which suggests that acoustic indices may be useful for detecting species in automated sound classification algorithms. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of acoustic indices as predictors in classification models for automated identification of frog species in environmental sound recordings from breeding habitats in north Queensland, Australia. Three types of classification models (random forests, support vector machines and gradient boosting) were trained and validated on a data set of 3274 1-minute audio segments labelled for the presence or absence of calling of 12 target frog species, and a feature set of 11 acoustic indices calculated on frequency bins of bandwidth 43.1 Hz. Classification performance was high for all 12 target species on the validation data set held out from the labelled training data (precision range 0.90–1.00 and recall range 0.83–0.99). However, performance declined for most target species when predicting frog calling on a further test data set taken from unseen recordings from the same sites. Best prediction results on the test data were achieved for species with the most training data, indicating accuracy may be improved by increasing training data, and this method is best suited to predicting chorusing of common species.

In recent years, passive acoustic monitoring has emerged as a reliable method for monitoring soniferous fauna, with numerous studies finding estimates of species richness and community composition are comparable with estimates derived from conventional field surveys. Most of these studies compare point counts of forest bird communities with contemporaneous short-duration acoustic recordings, but several questions remain. How do these two methods compare in more open, arid ecosystems, how does applying methods optimally influence comparisons, and how do patterns in acoustically detectable species compare with overall patterns? Here we demonstrate techniques for improving sampling of acoustic data and conduct acoustic surveys to estimate species richness from ephemeral creek-lines in the Australian arid zone using a long-term passively derived acoustic dataset. We examine these results in the context of long-term observer-based transect surveys conducted along the same creek-lines to define species within the avian assemblage that are acoustically detectable or acoustically undetectable/cryptic. Our data suggest that some species were consistently missed by acoustic surveys, but most belonged to groups that are typically excluded from inventories prior to analysis including rare species, raptors, waterbirds, swallows and nocturnal birds. Further, the relative diversities of sites were well estimated by acoustic surveys, with variations between sites reflecting those estimated by observer-based field surveys. This suggests that in our study system, acoustically detectable species are reliable indicators of overall species richness. Field-based surveys will remain an important component of sampling in arid ecosystems and we highlight the value of applying acoustic and conventional field-based surveys in a complementary manner. This approach allows large, publishable datasets to be generated by exploiting the temporal reach of acoustic sensors, while also maximizing d

Changes to hat distribution and habitat associations at the local to sub-landscape scale in the post white-nose syndrome (WNS) environment have received little attention to date despite being critical information for managers. To better understand the spatial nature of hat population declines, we modelled both activity patterns and occupancy from acoustic surveys for the Myotis lucifugus (little brown hat) on Fort Drum Military Installation in New York, USA over 15 summers (2003-2017) that span the pre-WNS, WNS-advent (2008) and post-WNS periods, using a set of generalized linear mixed models and geospatial analysis. Our best supported model indicated significant differences between years with significant declines in activity post-WNS. M. lucifugus activity was most closely associated with woody wetland habitats over the study period, however, the spatial patterns of high activity areas were variable over years, with the areal extent of these high activity areas decreasing post-WNS. Our best supported occupancy model varied by year. However, the null occupancy model [Psi(.)] was either competing (within 2 Delta AIC units) or was the best supported model. Meaning that none of our environmental variables seemed to impact occupancy, and when they did, these differences were not significant. There was high disagreement between our relative activity models and predictions compared to our occupancy models, suggesting that geographic spatial scale and the resolution of the data impacts model outcome. Our results indicate that continued acoustic monitoring of hat species in the Northeast to assess ongoing temporal and spatial changes in habitat associations and to provide direction for future mist-netting studies should rely more on relative activity as the metric of choice rather than site occupancy.

At 2000 m depth in the oceans, one can hear biological, seismological, meteorological, and anthropogenic activity. Acoustic monitoring of the oceans at a global scale and over long periods of time could bring important information for various sciences. The Argo project monitors the physical properties of the oceans with autonomous floats, some of which are also equipped with a hydrophone. These have a limited transmission bandwidth requiring acoustic data to be processed on board. However, developing signal processing algorithms for these instruments requires one to be an expert in embedded software. To reduce the need of such expertise, we have developed a programming language, called MeLa. The language hides several aspects of embedded software with specialized programming concepts. It uses models to compute energy consumption, processor usage, and data transmission costs early during the development of applications; this helps to choose a strategy of data processing that has a minimum impact on performances. Simulations on a computer allow for verifying the performance of the algorithms before their deployment on the instrument. We have implemented a seismic P wave detection and a blue whales D call detection algorithm with the MeLa language to show its capabilities. These are the first efforts toward multidisciplinary monitoring of the oceans, which can extend beyond acoustic applications.

Bat populations across North America are either facing new threats from white-nose syndrome (WNS) and wind energy development or have already experienced precipitous declines. Accordingly, researchers and managers need to know how to best monitor bats to document population and distribution changes, as well as where to look for persisting populations. Landscape-scale WNS impacts to summer bat populations are not well understood, and although acoustic monitoring is commonly used to monitor these populations, there is limited information about differences among acoustic detectors and the implications to managers thereof. My objectives were to model the relationship between WNS impact, influence of available hibernacula, and environmental factors for summer nightly presence of three WNS-affected bats and to compare how multiple models of acoustic detectors perform in terms of detection probability and nightly recorded bat activity. I collected acoustic data from 10 study areas across Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky to describe changes in nightly presence of WNS-affected bat species during summer 2017. During the same period of time, I compared five types of acoustic detectors at Fort Knox, Kentucky. My results show the potential efficacy of using a WNS impact-year metric to predict summer bat presence, and highlight which environmental variables are relevant for large-scale acoustic monitoring. Additionally, my findings suggest that each of the detector types tested would suffice for most research and monitoring activities, but standardization of detector type within the scope of a project or study should be encouraged.

Changes to hat distribution and habitat associations at the local to sub-landscape scale in the post white-nose syndrome (WNS) environment have received little attention to date despite being critical information for managers. To better understand the spatial nature of hat population declines, we modelled both activity patterns and occupancy from acoustic surveys for the Myotis lucifugus (little brown hat) on Fort Drum Military Installation in New York, USA over 15 summers (2003-2017) that span the pre-WNS, WNS-advent (2008) and post-WNS periods, using a set of generalized linear mixed models and geospatial analysis. Our best supported model indicated significant differences between years with significant declines in activity post-WNS. M. lucifugus activity was most closely associated with woody wetland habitats over the study period, however, the spatial patterns of high activity areas were variable over years, with the areal extent of these high activity areas decreasing post-WNS. Our best supported occupancy model varied by year. However, the null occupancy model [Psi(.)] was either competing (within 2 Delta AIC units) or was the best supported model. Meaning that none of our environmental variables seemed to impact occupancy, and when they did, these differences were not significant. There was high disagreement between our relative activity models and predictions compared to our occupancy models, suggesting that geographic spatial scale and the resolution of the data impacts model outcome. Our results indicate that continued acoustic monitoring of hat species in the Northeast to assess ongoing temporal and spatial changes in habitat associations and to provide direction for future mist-netting studies should rely more on relative activity as the metric of choice rather than site occupancy.

With the declines in abundance and changing distribution of white-nose syndrome-affected bat species, increased reliance on acoustic monitoring is now the new "normal." As such, the ability to accurately identify individual bat species with acoustic identification programs has become increasingly important. We assessed rates of disagreement between the three U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-approved acoustic identification software programs (Kaleidoscope Pro 4.2.0, Echoclass 3.1, and Bat Call Identification 2.7d) and manual visual identification using acoustic data collected during summers from 2003 to 2017 at Fort Drum, New York. We assessed the percentage of agreement between programs through pairwise comparisons on a total nightly count level, individual file level (e.g., individual echolocation pass call file), and grouped maximum likelihood estimate level (e.g., probability values that a species is misclassified as present when in fact it is absent) using preplanned contrasts, Akaike Information Criterion, and annual confusion matrices. Interprogram agreement on an individual file level was low, as measured by Cohen's Kappa (0.2-0.6). However, site-night level pairwise comparative analysis indicated that program agreement was higher (40-90%) using single season occupancy metrics. In comparing analytical outcomes of our different datasets (i.e., how comparable programs and visual identification are regarding the relationship between environmental conditions and bat activity), we determined high levels of congruency in the relative rankings of the model as well as the relative level of support for each individual model. This indicated that among individual software packages, when analyzing bat calls, there was consistent ecological inference beyond the file-by-file level at the scales used by managers. Depending on objectives, we believe our results can help users choose automated software and maximum likelihood estimate thresholds more appropriate for their needs

Sightings and acoustic recordings from eastern North Pacific gray whales in the Southern California Bight were analyzed for interannual changes and compared with concurrent environmental measurements during 7 migration seasons (2008−2009 to 2014−2015). Acoustic call counts recorded on an offshore hydrophone were highly variable from year to year. Assuming an average calling rate of 7.5 calls whale–1 d–1, the estimated number of whales migrating by this hydrophone would be <10% of the population within 20 km of the offshore hydrophone in most years. In contrast, the estimated number of gray whales migrating off Santa Barbara and Los Angeles based on visual surveys grew at a greater rate (11% yr−1 and 26% yr−1, respectively) than the population size growth rate (5% yr−1). Over the studied migration seasons it seems an increasing proportion of the population was using the nearshore migration corridor in the Southern California Bight, especially near Los Angeles. This trend could increase the negative anthropogenic impact on this species. Although several large-scale climatic events occurred between 2008 and 2015, neither water temperature in the Southern California Bight nor sea ice timing in the gray whale Arctic feeding area improved generalized additive models of gray whale nearshore sightings or offshore acoustic presence. Over these times, the gray whale migration timing appears to be driven more by their biological clock and instinct than by the extrinsic factors accounted for in the present analysis. Future work should test if other factors influence the gray whale migration over longer timescales.

Previous acoustic surveys, netting, and count data have shown that overall bat activity patterns have shifted among most species between pre- and post-white-nose syndrome (WNS) years in much of North America where WNS has occurred. However, the significance of these changes is based on the species-specific susceptibility to WNS. We used acoustically recorded echolocation passes obtained at Fort Drum, New York to describe changes in bat activity pre-WNS (2004-2007) to post-WNS (2008-2018). We examined seasonal and yearly changes in bat activity as they relate to the presence of WNS at hibernacula near (<25 km) Fort Drum. A priori, we expected that overall activity for communal hibernating species would be less in years following WNS, and migratory bats or those hibernating bats that are less affected by WNS would show no response or a positive response, due to niche relaxation/competitive release. Our results indicated both an overall and seasonal decrease in activity for Myotis spp. post-WNS. For WNS-susceptible species, our results reflect the high level of mortality in regional winter hibernacula post-WNS and possibly variable reproductive effort and recruitment thereafter. Although migratory bats did show increases in post-WNS activity throughout the summer, we found little evidence that community displacement was occurring on a nightly level by any species. The continuous spread of WNS across North America has had strong negative effects on bat populations of affected species, and our research identifies how individual species (both impacted and non-impacted) respond to WNS. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Understanding how native fauna use regrowth vegetation is critical because of increased land clearing rates and biodiversity loss, yet it remains poorly studied in Australia's semi-arid regions. The aim of this study was to use acoustic sensors to monitor avian diversity in three different age classes (new regrowth <15 years, intermediate regrowth 15–30 years, and old growth >30 years) of Acacia dominated, predominately mulga (Acacia aneura) woodlands in the Mulga Lands bioregion of south-west Queensland. We found that species richness (SR), functional diversity (FD) and phylogenetic diversity (PD) increased with time since last clearance, with statistically significant differences between new regrowth and old growth. Generalised linear models showed that tree cover was a significant predicator of SR, FD and PD. A non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis revealed that species composition was more similar within than between age classes. Each age class had unique species, yet intermediate regrowth and old growth shared a large number of species suggesting a convergence in species composition. The results of this study show that while old growth vegetation sustains the highest level of biodiversity, intermediate and new regrowth still support a range of bird species. Therefore, regrowth mulga vegetation represents important habitat for avian biodiversity in semi-arid western Queensland and should be protected.

Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Science in Biology, The Kunene region is an arid region with extreme environmental conditions. Understanding how environmental conditions affect bat activity, number and distribution is important for assessing activity and abundance. Monthly bat activity and the effect of environmental factors (temperatures, moon phase) on bat activity were recorded to elucidate factors influencing the distribution of bats. Wildlife Acoustic SM2 detectors were used to detect the bat activity from three sites, altitudinal gradient 238 to 970 m. A total of 6893 bat calls were recorded from five families at the study sites. Two families Vespertilionidae and Molossidae appeared to be present and dominant at all sites. Bat activity was significantly higher in the summer months, community composition was not related to altitude and no endemics were found. The highest activity was recorded at Hoanib (271 m). Temperatures were measured with data loggers at sampling sites and moonlight was compared using lunar phases. Activity was positively correlated with temperature at all sites and rarely occurred when temperatures were ≤ 11°C. Moon lunar phase did not affect activity as there was no significant difference between bright and dark nights (P>0.005). Bat activity was greater at the beginning of the night, independent of the presence of the moon at all sites, indicating that foraging just after sunset is adaptive. Bats response to moonlight maybe species-specific. Study results indicate that bat activity was highest at lower altitudes with more vegetation. Such information may be useful in recognizing conservation priorities of bats in the Kunene region. As these lower altitudes are more prone to human impacts which can lead to habitat degradation due to overgrazing and denudation of large trees for firewood. Therefore long-term monitoring of bat activity in the Kunene Region is important where environmental conditions may be extreme and variable.

With the declines in abundance and changing distribution of white-nose syndrome-affected bat species, increased reliance on acoustic monitoring is now the new "normal." As such, the ability to accurately identify individual bat species with acoustic identification programs has become increasingly important. We assessed rates of disagreement between the three U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-approved acoustic identification software programs (Kaleidoscope Pro 4.2.0, Echoclass 3.1, and Bat Call Identification 2.7d) and manual visual identification using acoustic data collected during summers from 2003 to 2017 at Fort Drum, New York. We assessed the percentage of agreement between programs through pairwise comparisons on a total nightly count level, individual file level (e.g., individual echolocation pass call file), and grouped maximum likelihood estimate level (e.g., probability values that a species is misclassified as present when in fact it is absent) using preplanned contrasts, Akaike Information Criterion, and annual confusion matrices. Interprogram agreement on an individual file level was low, as measured by Cohen's Kappa (0.2-0.6). However, site-night level pairwise comparative analysis indicated that program agreement was higher (40-90%) using single season occupancy metrics. In comparing analytical outcomes of our different datasets (i.e., how comparable programs and visual identification are regarding the relationship between environmental conditions and bat activity), we determined high levels of congruency in the relative rankings of the model as well as the relative level of support for each individual model. This indicated that among individual software packages, when analyzing bat calls, there was consistent ecological inference beyond the file-by-file level at the scales used by managers. Depending on objectives, we believe our results can help users choose automated software and maximum likelihood estimate thresholds more appropriate for their needs

Previous acoustic surveys, netting, and count data have shown that overall bat activity patterns have shifted among most species between pre- and post-white-nose syndrome (WNS) years in much of North America where WNS has occurred. However, the significance of these changes is based on the species-specific susceptibility to WNS. We used acoustically recorded echolocation passes obtained at Fort Drum, New York to describe changes in bat activity pre-WNS (2004-2007) to post-WNS (2008-2018). We examined seasonal and yearly changes in bat activity as they relate to the presence of WNS at hibernacula near (<25 km) Fort Drum. A priori, we expected that overall activity for communal hibernating species would be less in years following WNS, and migratory bats or those hibernating bats that are less affected by WNS would show no response or a positive response, due to niche relaxation/competitive release. Our results indicated both an overall and seasonal decrease in activity for Myotis spp. post-WNS. For WNS-susceptible species, our results reflect the high level of mortality in regional winter hibernacula post-WNS and possibly variable reproductive effort and recruitment thereafter. Although migratory bats did show increases in post-WNS activity throughout the summer, we found little evidence that community displacement was occurring on a nightly level by any species. The continuous spread of WNS across North America has had strong negative effects on bat populations of affected species, and our research identifies how individual species (both impacted and non-impacted) respond to WNS. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Passive acoustic recording has great potential for monitoring both endangered and pest species. However, the automatic analysis of natural sound recordings is challenging due to geographic variation in background sounds in habitats and species calls. We have designed and deployed an acoustic sensor network constituting an early warning system for a vocal invasive species, in particular cane toads. The challenging nature of recognising toad calls and the big data arising from sound recording gave rise to a novel edge computing system which permits both effective monitoring and flexible experimentation. This is achieved through a multi-stage analysis system in which calls are detected and progressively filtered, to both reduce data communication needs and to improve detection accuracy. The filtering occurs across different stages of the cloud system. This permits flexible experimentation, for example when a new call or false positive is received. Furthermore, to balance the loss of data from aggressive filtering (call recognition), novel overview techniques are employed to provide data summaries. In this way an end user can receive alerts that a toad call is present, the system can be tuned on the fly, and the user can view summary data to have confidence that the system is functioning correctly. The system has been deployed and is in day-to-day use. The novel approaches taken are applicable to other edge computing systems, which analyse large data streams looking for infrequent events and the system has application for monitoring other vocal species.

In the present work we show the preliminary results of the use of a side-scan sonar for the monitoring of seagrass Posidonia oceanica and the fan mussel Pinna nobilis in the marine area around the ¿Penyal d¿Ifac¿ in Calpe (Alicante), Spain. Both species are intimately linked and are endemic and emblematic to the Mediterranean Sea. For P. oceanica, four meadows were studied in different conservation states and at various depths. Direct measures of density and cover were taken to look for a correlation with the acoustic data. For P. nobilis, and due to the recent mass mortality event (MME), empty shells were used as a first step in the acoustic detection. The shells were placed in two different environments, bare sand, which will serve to learn about the acoustic signal of the shells, and P. oceanica, their main habitat. The results show a correlation between the acoustic results and direct measures of P. oceanica. P. nobilis shells were clearly detected in bare sand. However, the shells were barely detected, if so, in P. oceanica.

Acoustic monitoring is an effective means by which to study cetaceans, such as beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas), and can be useful in determining habitat preference and geographic variation among populations. Acoustic monitoring data were analyzed using a combination of automated detection and manual analysis to determine habitat preference of Cumberland Sound beluga in their summering range. Belugas were primarily detected in the northernmost site in Clearwater Fiord, with diel variation in call patterns at two separate sites in different years. No correlation was evident between tidal cycles and beluga detections. A second study examined geographic variation in simple contact calls (SCC’s) among four Canadian beluga populations. Results indicate variation in the measured parameters (duration, peak frequency and pulse repetition rate) among four populations and align with genetic variation previously described in the literature. These findings provide important information necessary for the conservation and management of beluga populations in Canada.

With declines in abundance and changing distribution of White-nose Syndrome (WNS)-affected bat species, increased reliance on acoustic monitoring is now the new "normal". As such, the ability to accurately identify individual bat species with acoustic identification programs has become increasingly important. Additionally, how bat distribution and habitat associations have changed at the local to sub-landscape scale in the post WNS environment is important to understand. The significance of these changes, relative to bat activity, may be based on the species-specific susceptibility to WNS. We used data collected from Fort Drum Military Installation, New York from the summers of 2003-2017 to analyze the accuracy of acoustic software programs, and assess the changes in relative bat activity, occupancy, and distribution induced by WNS. Our results indicate that continued acoustic monitoring of bat species, such as the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus) in the Northeast, to assess ongoing temporal and spatial changes, habitat associations, and as a guide to direct future mist-netting should rely more on relative activity as the metric of choice. Furthermore, the continuous spread of WNS across North America will have strong negative effects on bat populations and communities, this study points to how individual species (both impacted and non-impacted) will respond to WNS. We believe that our results can help users choose automated software and MLE thresholds more appropriate for their needs to accurately address potential changes in communities of bat species due to impacts of WNS or other factors.

We need to know if and how western barbastelles Barbastella barbastellus are affected by wind farming in Sweden. This is because wind turbines are frequently constructed in barbastelle habitats and yet there is no national guideline on how the arising conflict should be handled. We studied the movement, behavior and mortality of a barbastelle population at a wind farm in southern Sweden, using radio-telemetry, automatic bat detectors and carcass searches. The tagged bats (6 males and 8 females) roosted mainly under loose bark of dead oak trees and foraged in patches of mature deciduous woodlands or pockets of mature spruce trees within 15 km of the roosts. Extensive areas of young spruce plantation, open farmland and lakes were not used for roosting or foraging but were crossed by commuting bats. Continuous recordings with bat detectors frequently picked up barbastelles at forest edges 30 m from the turbines, but rarely over the turbine pads within 10 m from the turbines and never at heights of 30 and 100 m at the turbine towers. Barbastelles were apparently not attracted to the wind turbines and did not seem to interact with them in any way. Carcass searches under 10 wind turbines at 1-week intervals over three summers did not reveal any dead barbastelles, although three other species were recovered. We conclude that wind farming is not nessarily incompatible with effective conservation of barbastelles in Sweden, but instead of focusing on wind turbines, effors should concentrate on (a) preservation and restoration of mature, age-structured deciduous woodlands and spruce forests, including very small and isolated patches, which provide food and roosts, and probably also (b) avoidance of outdoor lighting in areas used by barbastelles. Designating large circular buffer zones around each known or suspected colony according to current practice would be inefficient or meaningless in our case, because barbastelles use extensive home ranges and switch roost frequently. We

Cane-toads (Bufo marinus) are introduced to Australia to negate the insect pests. However, cane-toad population is out of control, and has highly affected native frog species for its great reproductive capacity. Therefore, it is necessary to monitor cane-toads and control their population. Recent advances in acoustic sensors make it possible to monitor cane-toads over long periods. In this paper, we present a novel approach to analyze cane-toad calls for long-term monitoring. Specifically, recorded acoustic data is first transformed into spectrogram using short-time Fourier transform. Then, cane-toad calls are recognized with an oscillation detector. Next, recognized cane-toad calls are annotated for further analysis. Initial analysis of our method demonstrates promising results, with 71.36% true positive rate. With the oscillation detector, cane-toad calling activity is investigated over the whole year.

Combining wildlife conservation and urban development often can be problematic. Lewin's Rail is a near threatened, cryptic ground-dwelling bird that is found on land subject to development activity by the Brisbane Airport Corporation. This study quantified the habitat requirements of Lewin's Rail, and examined aspects of the regeneration of this habitat. By assessing the habitat requirements of Lewin's Rail, measures could be taken to facilitate the protection and integrity of remaining habitat, and also to minimise the impact of future disturbance upon the population on Brisbane airport land. The study also helps inform management of Lewin's Rail in other areas subject to human impact.

A 12-microphone array around the SAG mill at the MMG Century Pb-Zn operation (Queensland, Australia) uses non-contact acoustic measurement methodology to diagnose in-mill conditions to improve throughput and stability of the operation. The method has provided an increased throughput of at least 20% as well as improved stabilisation of the mill. The information derived from acoustic noise in the mill allows discrimination of behaviour of steel balls and rock, allowing identification of in-mill conditions such as toe and shoulder angles, water holdup and the ball to rock ratio. Feed size variations, measured online with an imaging system, have been used to determine the effect on the internal charge behaviour. It has been found that circumferential segregation of steel balls and rock occurs as well as poor mixing of large rocks. Both of these effects are not conducive to optimal breakage rates of different size fractions. Longitudinal segregation effects also occur., A 12-microphone array around the SAG mill at the MMG Century Pb-Zn operation (Queensland, Australia) uses non-contact acoustic measurement methodology to diagnose in-mill conditions to improve throughput and stability of the operation. The method has provided an increased throughput of at least 20% as well as improved stabilisation of the mill. The information derived from acoustic noise in the mill allows discrimination of behaviour of steel balls and rock, allowing identification of in-mill conditions such as toe and shoulder angles, water holdup and the ball to rock ratio. Feed size variations, measured online with an imaging system, have been used to determine the effect on the internal charge behaviour. It has been found that circumferential segregation of steel balls and rock occurs as well as poor mixing of large rocks. Both of these effects are not conducive to optimal breakage rates of different size fractions. Longitudinal segregation effects also occur.

An instrumented physical model was developed for the caving process in which a weakly cemented concrete sample consisting of water, sand, cement and fly ash was placed in a frame and accelerated to 80 g in a centrifuge. Hydraulic pistons were employed to support the bottom of the sample and retracted to simulate undercutting and remove confinement, causing the sample to cave and simultaneously removing the caved material to simulate extraction. Horizontal stresses were applied to the sample using rubber bladders filled with water, and the hydraulic pressure from the water was multiplied by constant centrifugal acceleration generated by the centrifuge travelling at a constant angular velocity. Monitoring involved the use of acoustic emission sensors embedded in the sample and linear variable displacement transducers fixed to the back plate of the frame. The samples showed caving behaviour and fragmentation distributions that would be expected from caving mines, with one cave deviating due to pre-existing major discontinuities in the sample. A series of fractures formed ahead of and parallel to the cave, indicating that an extensional failure mechanism may play a larger role in cave development than previously thought. Acoustic emission monitoring showed a seismogenic zone advancing ahead of the cave., An instrumented physical model was developed for the caving process in which a weakly cemented concrete sample consisting of water, sand, cement and fly ash was placed in a frame and accelerated to 80 g in a centrifuge. Hydraulic pistons were employed to support the bottom of the sample and retracted to simulate undercutting and remove confinement, causing the sample to cave and simultaneously removing the caved material to simulate extraction. Horizontal stresses were applied to the sample using rubber bladders filled with water, and the hydraulic pressure from the water was multiplied by constant centrifugal acceleration generated by the centrifuge travelling at a constant angular velocity. Monitoring involved the use of acoustic emission sensors embedded in the sample and linear variable displacement transducers fixed to the back plate of the frame. The samples showed caving behaviour and fragmentation distributions that would be expected from caving mines, with one cave deviating due to pre-existing major discontinuities in the sample. A series of fractures formed ahead of and parallel to the cave, indicating that an extensional failure mechanism may play a larger role in cave development than previously thought. Acoustic emission monitoring showed a seismogenic zone advancing ahead of the cave.

Advances in programmable field acoustic sensors provide immense data for bird species study. Manually searching for bird species present in these acoustic data is time-consuming. Although automated techniques have been used for species recognition in many studies, currently these techniques are prone to error due to the complexity of natural acoustics. In this paper we propose a smart sampling approach to help identify the maximum number of bird species while listening to the minimum amount of acoustic data. This approach samples audio clips in a manner that can direct bird species surveys more efficiently. First, a classifier is built to remove audio clips that are unlikely to contain birds; second, the remaining audio clips are ranked by a proxy for the number of species. This technique enables a more efficient determination of species richness. The experimental results show that the use of a classifier enables to remove redundant acoustic data and make our approach resilient to various weather conditions. By ranking audio clips classified as “Birds”, our method outperforms the currently best published strategy for finding bird species after 30 one-minute audio clip samples. Particularly after 60 samples, our method achieves 10 percentage points more species. Despite our focus on bird species, the proposed sampling approach is applicable to the search of other vocal species.

Most European bats rely on forests, for example as foraging and roosting habitat. Human activities, e.g. logging, can have negative and positive effects on bats and therefore this study aimed to investigate how differently managed beech forest stands influence bats including selected stands of oak und spruce and other factors potentially affecting bat activity. The study took place in one of Denmark's largest and oldest forests in Northern Zealand in July 2015. I used acoustic monitoring to compare bat activity and foraging activity in 30 forest stands with six different management types: long unmanaged beech forest, recently unmanaged beech forest, near natural managed beech forest, managed beech forest, oak forest and spruce forest. Using generalized linear mixed-effects models, I evaluated the effects of various factors on bat activity and the bat foraging behavior. I obtained 14,347 recordings of bat calls of eight different bat species: Pipistrellus pygmaeus, Pipistrellus nathusii, Pipistrellus pipistrellus, Plecotus auritus, Eptesicus serotinus, Nyctalus noctula, Myotis daubentonii and Myotis nattereri. Overall, I found no difference in bat occurrences across the differently managed beech forest stands. However, for N. noctula I found a preference for the long unmanaged beech stands. Furthermore, I found higher bat activity in beech forests than in oak and spruce stands. The results of my models indicate that bat activity is best explained by the distance to water, vegetation cover and temperature. Additionally, distance to forest edge seems to have an effect on foraging activity. Among others, this suggests the importance of water bodies close to bat habitats which can be used for drinking and foraging as many insects occur there. Biologists and forest managers should work together so that conservation and silviculture do not exclude each other. Furthermore, it seems reasonabl

A better understanding of the key ecological processes of marine organisms is fundamental to improving design and effective implementation of marine protected areas (MPAs) and marine biodiversity. The movement behavior of coral reef fish is a complex mechanism that is highly linked to species life-history traits, predation risk and food resources. We used passive acoustic telemetry to study monthly, daily and hourly movement patterns and space use in two species, Schoolmaster snapper (Lutjanus apodus) and Stoplight parrotfish (Sparisoma viride). We investigated the spatial overlap between the two species and compared intra-specific spatial overlap between day and night. Presence-absence models showed different diel presence and habitat use patterns between the two species. We constructed a spatial network of the movement patterns, which showed that for both species when fish were detected by the array of receivers most movements were made around the coral reef habitat while occasionally moving to silt habitats. Our results show that most individuals made predictable daily crepuscular migrations between different locations and habitat types, although individual behavioral changes were observed for some individuals across time. Our study also highlights the necessity to consider multiple species during MPA implementation and to take into account the specific biological and ecological traits of each species. The low number of fish detected within the receiver array, as well as the intraspecific variability observed in this study, highlight the need to compare results across species and individuals to be used for MPA management.

Peer Reviewed, Postprint (author’s final draft)

The long-term goal of this project is to quantify the behavior of mother-calf pairs from the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) to determine a) why mothers and calves are more susceptible to collisions with vessels and, b) determine the vocal behavior of this critical life stage to assess the effectiveness of passive acoustic monitoring to detect mother-calf pairs in important habitat areas., Prepared in collaboration with the Protected Species Branch, Northeast Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries, Woods Hole, MA.

A joint project in July and August 2013 on and around the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) combined passive acoustic monitoring and boat-based field efforts. There were 671 kilometers (36.6 hours [hr]) of small-vessel survey effort over the course of the 8-day project, with 55.1 percent of time (20.2 hr) spent within the PMRF instrumented hydrophone range boundaries. A total of 33.0 hr of acoustic monitoring coincided with the small-vessel field effort. There were 18 sightings of four species of odontocetes, five of which were directed by acoustic detections from the Marine Mammal Monitoring on Navy Ranges (M3R) system. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) were encountered on six occasions, spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) on three, rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis) on eight, and false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) once. Recordings on the M3R system were made for three of the four species (all but spinner dolphins) to improve species classification for future acoustic monitoring efforts. During the encounters 4,393 photos were taken for individual identification, two biopsy samples were obtained for genetic studies, and three depth-transmitting satellite tags were deployed on two species (one false killer whale, two rough-toothed dolphins). Data were obtained from the two tagged rough-toothed dolphins for 9.9 and 13.4 days. During this period they remained associated with Ni'ihau, with each found inside PMRF range boundaries on 11 occasions, spending 34 percent and 46 percent of their time on PMRF, respectively. The tagged false killer whale was identified as part of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands population, known from previous efforts to use the area around Kaua'i. Data were obtained for 21.3 days; during this period the tagged individual was found inside PMRF boundaries on 17 occasions, spending 24 percent of its time on PMRF., Prepared in collaboration with Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Newport, RI.