Continuous monitoring of rainforest biodiversity via acoustic signal processing

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There is only limited knowledge of how biodiversity changes through time, yet understanding those changes represents one of the great challenges to ecology. Knowing exactly how biodiversity is changing is important for determining which species are endangered and which are not, and for creating accurate indices that can be used to assess how effectively conservation money has been spent. There is a direct analogue with climate change: only through detailed climate data from automated monitoring stations have scientists been able to determine the rate and likely future impact of changing global climates. Exactly the same is true of biodiversity: we require detailed data from automated monitoring stations to determine the magnitude of the current extinction crisis and to best target the limited amount of money available to counteract it.The principal explanation for our lack of knowledge is the labour costs associated with monitoring biodiversity. It is expensive to have trained scientists conducting field surveys, and the solution is to monitor biodiversity using technology rather than people. Our work will do this by automated processing of acoustic data. Sound carries substantial information about biodiversity, being used for navigation and communication by a wide range of taxa. Acoustic information can tell us a lot about which bats, grasshoppers, birds and amphibians are present in a given area. It has even been used to identify individuals, with some species such as gibbons and dolphins having calls that are distinct to every single animal in the population, much as people have distinctive voices and names. We are going to stream data from a solar-powered sound recording system through mobile networks to an automated computer processing facility that will decipher the environmental noise to tell us which species are contributing to that noise. Our work will be take place in the rainforests of Borneo, one of the world's most biodiverse habitats and one of the most challenging natural environments in which to work. If we can successfully use technology to automatically record biodiversity here, then we can do it anywhere.We're going to combine our research with a free public radio station to be broadcast online, providing the public with a direct line to the rainforest itself. We hope that giving people the opportunity we have had of waking up to the sound of gibbons whooping to each other and the laughing calls of rhinoceros hornbills whomping past overhead will help convince them that, although rainforests are a long way away, they are beautiful environments that can be enjoyed even from afar.