EcoHacK-2022

EcoHacK will take place at the University of Stirling, 31 October-02 November 2022.

With the advent of low-cost passive detectors and the recent development of new acoustic sampling methods, the collection of ecological sounds in the field has gained momentum amongst researchers and practitioners worldwide to answer key ecological questions. The analysis of sound recordings was traditionally done manually but quickly became a time-consuming process. To overcome this issue, acoustic indices have recently been developed to summarize the sonic environment. Furthermore, the use of sound recognition algorithms based on machine learning now allows to discriminate with high confidence specific sounds of interest. As these modern techniques are evolving rapidly, this workshop will provide an opportunity to work collaboratively on projects (hackathon format), learn, discuss, and exchange on state of the art methods in eco-acoustics.

The main objectives of EcoHacK are to:

• bring together students, early-career, postdoctoral and senior researchers as well as key stakeholders (e.g. charities and private sector bodies) interested in sound recognition, bioacoustic, and soundscape ecology,

• foster links and collaboration between institutions and across disciplines, as well as encouraging dialogue between the academic and private sector,

• discuss, exchange, and share experiences and best practices in sound recording analysis,

• explore novel ways of linking acoustic data with environmental variables at different spatiotemporal scales.

Important Information

Register here before Oct. 8th 2022.

More information on EcoHacK here

List of projects

Here are the projects that have been confirmed, by participants who have already registered to EcoHacK 2022. All projects will be pitched during the first day.

• Visualization of large ecoacoustics recordings databases
• Acoustic Index Manual. Many publications call for researchers to understand acoustic indices before they apply them. While the original publications proposing the indices, and some guidelines published since, have offered descriptions of the indices, finer details are generally missing. This means that selecting appropriate indices and interpreting patterns can be difficult. This manual will offer a step-by-step breakdown of the index calculations, coupled with example simulated and real-world recordings, to aid wider understanding within ecoacoustics and beyond.
• Interactive practioners guide to use soundscape data for undergrduate teaching (in articulate storyline)
• Activity patterns and species-level responses of tropical insectivorous bats to land-use change: insights from the Gulf of Guinea
• Local and landscape-scale predictors of aerial insectivorous bats in São Tomé and Príncipe
• Developing a visualisation method to show how the acoustic space is used through time at large timescales (e.g. 1 year) -Classifying Eurasian Curlew vocalisations to different call types to make inferences on productivity and predation at breeding sites
• I will bring the recordings of AudioMoths that were set in the island of São Tomé across a gradient of habitat use (forest, palm plantation, cacao plantation, communities). The goals with the data are: 1) to detect the rat activity to estimate their use of habitat across the island, and 2) to describe the community composition of birds across habitats. The general scope of our research is to correlate rat and bird presence with rat diet to estimate their impact on native fauna.
• Looking at bat activity and diversity in vineyards using bioacoustics.
• Investigating the indirect effects of ecosystem services provided by bats using bioacoustics- soundscape concept.
• Rock Ptarmigan recognition and comparison of the results with BirdNET-Analyzer.
• Eurasian Woodcock individual recognition
• An easy-to-use web application offering a standardized user interface for commandline programs (BirdNET, AviaNZ etc.) including efficient selecting the audio input data, the analysis program and its parameters, managing the batch processing and storing the results.
• Assessing gains in biodiversity assets (birds and bats) induced by restoration actions in 18 sites in North Sweden
• Defining new harmonised metrics to measure biodiversity assets, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services jointly across various forest types and along a restoration chronosequence.
• Classifying Eurasian Curlew vocalisations to different call types to make inferences on productivity and predation at breeding sites