Graeme Hamilton and I go back to my early years in Australia. Graeme and I met at the Plant Research Institute in Melbourne 25 year ago. We collaborated on an analysis that was used as part of his PhD on the dynamics of the cotton tipworm. Subsequently he and his wife Lindsay came to Michigan to study the apple maggot and other systems. Patricia and I were fortunate to visit Graeme, Lindsay, Angus, Seona and Ellen at their home in Hall, Australia in February, 2004 when Graeme was associated with the Locust Commission. Ellen Hamilton became fascinated with recording natural sounds and digital photography. She ‘took over’ the mini-disk recorder and the microphone and digital camera and made some outstanding photographs and recordings. We made several recordings and took lots of pictures in the Hall environs. Most of the pictures were taken by Ellen.
Sounds produced by the environment may enable assessment as to the overall health of an ecosystem. The types of emanating environmental sounds depend on habitat type, the mosaic of habitats within the landscape, the time of day and season of year, as well as many other critical components. Patterns of acoustic signals therefore reflect the dynamics of biological, social, and physical systems within each landscape. The investigation into how acoustic patterns influence habitat quality and reflect that habitat's ability to sustain its array of organisms is therefore of critical importance. The goals of the study are: 1) Monitor acoustic signals across an urban-rural gradient, 2)Analyze long-term acoustic patterns in relation to land use and land cover changes, 3) Develop a better understanding of the complex ecological interactions critical to ecosystem integrity.
A framework for the study and understanding of patch-level acoustic signals from an agricultural landscape is developed. This framework includes a) a taxonomy of the biological and physical characteristics of a soundscape, b) an analytical approach to quantify the components of an acoustic sample taken from the environment, c) a protocol for measurement of acoustic signals in the environment, d) a cyber-infrastructure necessary to manage numerous acoustic signals sampled from different environments, and f) a web tool to present acoustic information in near-real time from different places at different times. Our research has produced methods to characterize acoustics in human dominated ecosystems. Our findings are in three areas: a) soundscape classification, b) measurement of diurnal patterns of acoustics, and c) development of indices relating human and biophysical acoustics.
This soundscape project was developed in 2007 as part of the Long Term Ecological Research program at the Kellogg Biological Station, Hickory Corners, MI. The Kellogg Biological Station Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) Program studies the ecology of intensive field crop ecosystems and its environmental consequences as part of a National Network of LTER Sites established by the National Science Foundation in 1980. The objectives of the project were twofold: first, wireless acoustic sensor technology had been developed on the MSU campus and required testing at a field site. The LTER Site was ideal because the agricultural plots were large (1 ha) and included a diverse array of agricultural habitats. Second, as part of the ongoing study to utilize ecological principles to investigate productivity of row-crop agriculture we wanted to examine patterns in the soundscapes of different row crop habitats. Twelve sensors were deployed and the recorders automatically collected 14,483 recordings during June, 2007 at 30 minute intervals for a duration of 30 seconds. The recordings were transmitted to a local server at the field site and were then relayed to a remote server on the MSU campus where they were placed into a digital archive for access and analysis.
