The world’s ecosystems are filled with the sounds of animals and their environments. However, this combination of sounds is not a cacophony of random noise, but rather, patterns of animal sounds reveal specific information as to their behavior and ecology. We try to determine “who’s there” and “what they are saying.” These basic questions, in turn, inform why these animals may inhabit particular environments, and how communities of these animals fit together within shared space and time.
My lab addresses fundamental ecological and evolutionary questions about how sound drives animal life history. I am a comparative biologist, and regularly use information collected on one animal or environment to shed light on the ecology of another. As such, we have collected acoustic recordings in a diversity of habitats around the world, to understand and conserve wildlife and habitats. We use integrative and comparative approaches to identify: the roles that sounds play among organisms and; how we as scientists may uses these sounds to understand the environment in which these animals live; how the ecosystem may be changing; and what we can understand about human impacts to ecosystems by observing this change. These scientific areas (described in more detail below) are interrelated, and span basic and applied scientific contexts.
1) Organismal Biology and Behavioral Ecology of Sounds
Vocal communication is a critical life history aspect for most of Earth’s animals. Animals use sound primarily in four main areas: finding food, finding mates, defending themselves, or defending resources. Organisms use these sounds to communicate with conspecifics, and organisms can listen to other species’ signals to get information for themselves. Our goal with this scientific theme is to understand how and why animals use acoustic communication. We want to know what mechanisms produce sounds, how they function and contribute to the properties of sounds, which particular acoustic signals a species can hear, and the evolutionary or environmental components that have shaped a species’ sound production or reception abilities. With these acoustic signals, we try to understand the acoustic structure, how they differ between individuals or species, what information or cues are encoded, and what their behavioral role may be. This basic bioacoustic approach of the organismal-level role of sounds sets the foundation for understanding the biology and ecology of organisms from the sounds they use.
2) Population/Ecosystem Dynamics
Listening for sounds in nature provides a non-invasive way to observe animal sounds. The ability to identify species-specific sounds, combined with the long-term or broadly distributed acoustic recordings, provides a way to study animal populations that would be difficult or impossible through other methods. In using acoustics to understand population-level behavior, we are not only interested in the types of sounds that particular species are making (and their behavioral function), but what is also important is the time and location these sounds were produced. The spatial or temporal record of the sound provides a record of a species’ occurrence, and when accumulated over time or space, provides insight as to when populations of individuals may have occupied a particular location, what they may have been doing there (e.g., feeding, reproducing, etc.), when they migrate between locations, or the spatial extent of their range. With this information, we can piece together data across many seasons, years, or locations to create a broad spatial and temporal understanding of different species’ ecologies.
3) Ecosystem/Community Composition (Biodiversity)
The process of recording sounds from a particular location provides the ability to understand the diversity of species that are calling in a particular location, based on the identification of their species-specific sounds. We can establish inventories of the acoustically-active species that are calling from a particular environment to explore its relative degree of acoustic biodiversity. The more species’ calls that we can identify, the greater the number of species who’s occurrence or behavior we can track within a particular habitat. We can record at a diversity of locations to evaluate relative degrees of animal diversity or abundance, and record at sites over time to examine seasonal patterns. By understanding the behavioral context of particular sounds, we can understand how these different animals are using the habitat and what they are doing when there.
4) Habitat/Ecosystem Status or Disturbance (Applied Ecology and Conservation)
Having addressed what organisms are present within a habitat, when they are there and what they may be doing there, we apply this ecological information in a conservation biology context. We can observe how changes in animal calling in space or time can reveal population-level responses to ecological change. We can use changes in acoustic trends to infer fluctuations in species’ occurrence, abundance or diversity, and infer how human activities or other environmental changes affect different habitats and the organisms living within them. We can use corroborating datasets to predict factors that alter populations. Acoustic recordings collected at differing temporal and spatial scales let us evaluate ecosystem change in a response to wide variety of potential threats, including noise pollution, overfishing, invasive species, climate change, urban sprawl, and many others. Because of the non-invasive nature of passive acoustic recordings, we can monitor the ecology of vulnerable or protected species with no impact to their populations; something not possible with other survey methods.
Our overarching scientific goal within BRP is to understand how nature works by listening to different environments. As this scientific vision is intended to direct how we pursue our science, all projects we take-on and scientific questions we address should not only meet our organizational mission, but follow one or more of the thematic areas listed above. By doing this, we can stay scientifically focused, and continue to demonstrate the value of bioacoustic approaches as a fundamental component of organismal biology and ecology.
My lab addresses fundamental ecological and evolutionary questions about how sound drives animal life history. I am a comparative biologist, and regularly use information collected on one animal or environment to shed light on the ecology of another. As such, we have collected acoustic recordings in a diversity of habitats around the world, to understand and conserve wildlife and habitats. We use integrative and comparative approaches to identify: the roles that sounds play among organisms and; how we as scientists may uses these sounds to understand the environment in which these animals live; how the ecosystem may be changing; and what we can understand about human impacts to ecosystems by observing this change. These scientific areas (described in more detail below) are interrelated, and span basic and applied scientific contexts.
1) Organismal Biology and Behavioral Ecology of Sounds
Vocal communication is a critical life history aspect for most of Earth’s animals. Animals use sound primarily in four main areas: finding food, finding mates, defending themselves, or defending resources. Organisms use these sounds to communicate with conspecifics, and organisms can listen to other species’ signals to get information for themselves. Our goal with this scientific theme is to understand how and why animals use acoustic communication. We want to know what mechanisms produce sounds, how they function and contribute to the properties of sounds, which particular acoustic signals a species can hear, and the evolutionary or environmental components that have shaped a species’ sound production or reception abilities. With these acoustic signals, we try to understand the acoustic structure, how they differ between individuals or species, what information or cues are encoded, and what their behavioral role may be. This basic bioacoustic approach of the organismal-level role of sounds sets the foundation for understanding the biology and ecology of organisms from the sounds they use.
2) Population/Ecosystem Dynamics
Listening for sounds in nature provides a non-invasive way to observe animal sounds. The ability to identify species-specific sounds, combined with the long-term or broadly distributed acoustic recordings, provides a way to study animal populations that would be difficult or impossible through other methods. In using acoustics to understand population-level behavior, we are not only interested in the types of sounds that particular species are making (and their behavioral function), but what is also important is the time and location these sounds were produced. The spatial or temporal record of the sound provides a record of a species’ occurrence, and when accumulated over time or space, provides insight as to when populations of individuals may have occupied a particular location, what they may have been doing there (e.g., feeding, reproducing, etc.), when they migrate between locations, or the spatial extent of their range. With this information, we can piece together data across many seasons, years, or locations to create a broad spatial and temporal understanding of different species’ ecologies.
3) Ecosystem/Community Composition (Biodiversity)
The process of recording sounds from a particular location provides the ability to understand the diversity of species that are calling in a particular location, based on the identification of their species-specific sounds. We can establish inventories of the acoustically-active species that are calling from a particular environment to explore its relative degree of acoustic biodiversity. The more species’ calls that we can identify, the greater the number of species who’s occurrence or behavior we can track within a particular habitat. We can record at a diversity of locations to evaluate relative degrees of animal diversity or abundance, and record at sites over time to examine seasonal patterns. By understanding the behavioral context of particular sounds, we can understand how these different animals are using the habitat and what they are doing when there.
4) Habitat/Ecosystem Status or Disturbance (Applied Ecology and Conservation)
Having addressed what organisms are present within a habitat, when they are there and what they may be doing there, we apply this ecological information in a conservation biology context. We can observe how changes in animal calling in space or time can reveal population-level responses to ecological change. We can use changes in acoustic trends to infer fluctuations in species’ occurrence, abundance or diversity, and infer how human activities or other environmental changes affect different habitats and the organisms living within them. We can use corroborating datasets to predict factors that alter populations. Acoustic recordings collected at differing temporal and spatial scales let us evaluate ecosystem change in a response to wide variety of potential threats, including noise pollution, overfishing, invasive species, climate change, urban sprawl, and many others. Because of the non-invasive nature of passive acoustic recordings, we can monitor the ecology of vulnerable or protected species with no impact to their populations; something not possible with other survey methods.
Our overarching scientific goal within BRP is to understand how nature works by listening to different environments. As this scientific vision is intended to direct how we pursue our science, all projects we take-on and scientific questions we address should not only meet our organizational mission, but follow one or more of the thematic areas listed above. By doing this, we can stay scientifically focused, and continue to demonstrate the value of bioacoustic approaches as a fundamental component of organismal biology and ecology.