Collaborative Research: Navigating the New Arctic (NNA): Soundscape ecology to assess environmental and anthropogenic controls on wildlife behavior

整个北美、北极和北方地区的变暖速度是全球平均速度的两到三倍。与此同时，人类发展继续侵蚀和加剧，主要是由于对石油和天然气等自然资源的需求。北极寒带地区幅员辽阔、地理位置偏远，是其景观、环境、野生动物和人类的典型特征，但其面积和孤立性也使研究其生态系统如何变化变得困难。为了克服这些挑战，自主录音网络可以用来描述“声景”——从景观中发出的声音的集合。与昂贵、劳动密集、物流困难的传统观测方法不同，录音网络提供了一种经济有效的方法，可以监测和了解野生动物对广大地区环境和人为变化的反应。这种声音测量方法的一个特别挑战是从收集的大量声景数据中提取有用的生态信息。该项目将开发克服这一挑战所需的技术。研究人员的目标是了解环境动态和日益增加的人为活动对阿拉斯加北极-北方和加拿大西北部迁徙驯鹿（Rangifer tarandus）、水禽和鸣禽群落的行为和物候的影响。通过与当地土地管理者和土著社区共同生产知识，研究小组将把实地观察、建模和分析结合起来，其中包括：(1)声景测量，(2)摄像机陷阱观察，(3)自动声景分析，(4)摄像机陷阱驯鹿观察分析，(5)环境变量的高分辨率建模，(6)包括野生动物占用、多样性和物候模型在内的统计分析，以及(7)一个人类计算游戏，收集我们的录音描述，允许本地和土著玩家参与游戏。该项目将有助于了解鸟类群落和北美驯鹿种群如何应对环境条件的时空变化，以及在一个几乎不可能进行如此全面、大规模研究的地区，石油和天然气工业的日益发展。此外，应各部落组织的要求，我们的研究将深入了解工业噪音如何影响传统习俗。此外，我们的研究将提供所有自然声音的基线数据，包括北极国家野生动物保护区在石油和天然气开发之前的鸟类和驯鹿活动数据。这些数据集将为土著实践和自然资源管理提供信息，并为土地管理者和油气开发商未来所需的环境评估提供便利。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Across North America, Arctic and boreal regions have been warming at a rate two to three times higher than the global average. At the same time, human development continues to encroach and intensify, primarily due to demand for natural resources, such as oil and gas. The vast and remote nature of Arctic-boreal regions typify their landscapes, environment, wildlife, and people, but their size and isolation also make it difficult to study how their ecosystems are changing. To overcome these challenges, autonomous recording networks can be used to characterize "soundscapes" - a collection of sounds that emanate from landscapes. Unlike traditional observing methods that are expensive, labor-intensive, and logistically challenging, sound-recording networks provide a cost-effective means to both monitor and understand the response of wildlife to environmental and anthropogenic changes across vast areas. One particular challenge with this sound-measurement approach is extracting useful ecological information from the large volumes of soundscape data that are collected. This project will develop the techniques necessary to overcome this challenge.The researchers' goal is to understand the influence of both environmental dynamics and increasing anthropogenic activity on the behavior and phenology of migratory caribou (Rangifer tarandus), waterfowl, and songbird communities in Arctic-boreal Alaska and northwestern Canada. Through co-production of knowledge with local land managers and indigenous communities, the research team will combine field observations, modeling, and analyses that include: (1) soundscape measurements, (2) camera-trap observations, (3) automated soundscape analyses, (4) analyses of camera-trap caribou observations, (5) high-resolution modeling of environmental variables, (6) statistical analyses including wildlife occupancy, diversity, and phenology modeling, and (7) a human-computation game to collect descriptions of our acoustic recordings that allows for the participation of local and Indigenous players of the game. The project will contribute understanding of how both avian communities and caribou populations are responding to spatiotemporal variations in environmental conditions and increasing development of the oil and gas industry in a region where such comprehensive, large-scale research has rarely been possible. Further, at the request of various Tribal organizations, our research will provide insight into how industrial noise influences traditional practices. In addition, our research will provide baseline data on all natural sounds, including data on bird and caribou activity, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge prior to oil and gas development. These datasets will be available to inform Indigenous practices and natural resource management, as well as facilitate future Environmental Assessments required by land managers and oil and gas developers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.