Bioacoustics

Bioacoustics usually refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion

and reception in animals (including humans).This involves neurophysiology  and
anatomical basis of sound production and detection, and relation of acoustic signals to
the medium they disperse through. The findings provide clues about the evolution of
acoustic mechanisms, and from that, the evolution of animals that employ them.

Listening is still one of the main methods used in bioacoustical research. Little is
known about neuro-physiological processes that play a role in production, detection
and interpretation of sounds in animals, so animal behaviour and the signals
themselves are used for gaining insight into these processes.

Human Applications of Bioacoustics

 Audio feature extraction

Methods in bioacoustics are becoming increasingly automated, with researchers

deploying autonomous recorders that are capable of automatically collecting data. The
automated analysis of sound has also been applied to tasks such as speech recognition.
This is easily the most well-known application of audio analysis, and it is found on
every smartphone today. Outside of speech recognition, computer scientists have
focused their attention on the classification of ‘sound scenes’ (the type of environment
an audio recording was collected in, such as a street or the inside of a bus), and of
‘sound events’ (for example, identifying if a car has passed by).

After completing data collection, the first step in analysing audio recordings is to
extract meaningful information from the signal. This process is commonly termed
audio feature extraction. There are several methods for extracting audio features from
a signal, and the process of identifying what type of features should be used can be
viewed as a research task in itself. While these methods can be carried out in the time
domain, the majority of algorithms focus on the time–frequency domain

Applications of bioacoustics in animal ecology

In communication animals use a full range of signals: acoustic, visual, chemical,
electrical and tactile. The processes involved in how and why animals communicate
have long held veritable fascination for scientists. A branch of science concerned with
the production of sound and its effects on living organisms is bioacoustics.

 Automated acoustic monitoring in ecology and conservation

Bioacoustic monitoring in ecology and conservation is an extremely challenging

task, and the relationship between an ecosystem and audio recorded from it is still not
fully understood Bioacoustic analysis has proven especially useful in environments
that are naturally hostile to humans and where visibility is low, such as marine and
tropical ecosystems. Acoustic monitoring can also be useful in detecting nocturnal
animals such as bats. This concept of hostile environment can be extended to include
animal production facilities, which have been shown to be associated with increased
risk of respiratory diseases in humans. Automated acoustic monitoring helps reduce
the amount of time that humans have to spend in potentially dangerous environments,
and aid farmers in monitoring animal health and welfare. It also allows for the
monitoring of animals at night when workers may not be available, and visibility is
low. The interdisciplinary and highly technical nature of the field requires researchers
to be familiar with digital signal processing, mathematics, machine learning and
ecology.

 Bioacoustic monitoring in measurement of environmental pollution

Interestingly, bioacoustics can also be used for purposes other than measuring
species biodiversity. Research conducted by Kloepper and Simmons (2014)  proves
that bioacoustic monitoring can be a good indicator of climate change. Increases in
global temperature can cause changes in vast areas, including melting of glaciers,
decreases in Arctic ice cover, weather changes (droughts/floods) and increased
disease risk (Neftel et al., 1985: IPCC, 213). These biotic and abiotic effects of
climate change can also affect environmental acoustics and thus change
communication between animals. This in turn leads to changes in entire soundscapes
and affects biodiversity, as some species are unable to adapt quickly to changes in the
environment (Peck et al., 2004).

One of the better known effects of climate change affecting acoustics is due to
increasing acidification of the oceans. Burning of fossil fuels has fueled emissions of
CO2 into the atmosphere for years. At present, however, only about half of these
emissions are still in the atmosphere, the rest - due to precipitation - was absorbed by
the seas and oceans, affecting their acidification (Kloepper and Simmons 2014).

Sound naturally attenuates in the ocean - a phenomenon known as acoustic

absorption. As a result of absorption, energy of a wave passing through the medium is
reduced, causing the medium's internal energy to increase.