Publisher : Elsevier Ltd.
Place of publication :
Publication year : 2016
Thematic : Biodiversity Information Management
Language : English
Note
Climate change is an important cause of the irreversible transformation of habitats, of the rapid extinction of
species, and of the dramatic changes in entire communities, especially for tropical assemblages and for habitatand
range-restricted species, such as mountaintop and polar species.
In particular, climate change effects several aspects of animal sounds (e.g., song amplitude and frequency, song
post, and sound phenology). Animal sounds, which are life traits characterized by high plasticity, are able to
cope with even modest variations of environmental fundamentals like vegetation cover, land mosaic structure,
temperature, humidity, and pH (for aquatic medium). Moreover, the climatic effects on these biophonies can
be observed earlier than change in vegetation patterns and visible landscape structures.
Ecoacoustics, the discipline that investigates the role of sound on animal ecology from species to landscapes,
offers robust models, such as acoustic adaptation, acoustic niche, acoustic active space, acoustic community,
and acoustic phenology to investigate the effect of climate change on species, populations, communities, and
landscapes.
From an operational perspective, ecoacoustics procedures can be applied in different contexts, such as locations,
weather, species, populations, behavior, physiology, and phenology. In addition, thematic priorities can be selected,
such as latitudinal and altitudinal gradients, restricted habitats, stopover areas, extreme environments,
weather conditions, short distance migrants, species at high vocal plasticity, sink-source status, active space,
social attraction, physiological modifications, dawn and dusk choruses, sound from stressed plants, and time
series analysis.
The noninvasiveness of passive acoustic recording, the simultaneous collection of important data, such as
community richness and diversity, immigration and extinction events, and singing dynamics as well as the
availability of innovative noninvasive technologies operating over a long-term period, establish ecoacoustics as
a new and important tool with which it is possible to analyze massive acoustic data sets and quickly predict
and/or evaluate the effects of climate change on the environment.
Moreover, passive recording is supported by cheap, user-friendly field sensors and robust data processing and
may be part of the citizen science research agenda on climate change.
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Encoded by : Pauline Carmel Joy Eje
