Worldwide Soundscapes: A synthesis of Passive Acoustic Monitoring across realms
| Authors: | Kevin F. A. Darras, Rodney A. Rountree, Steven L. Van Wilgenburg, Anna F. Cord, Frederik Pitz, Youfang Chen, Lijun Dong, Agnès Rocquencourt, Camille Desjonquères, Patrick Mauritz Diaz, Tzu‐Hao Lin, Théophile Turco, Louise Emmerson, Tom Bradfer‐Lawrence, Amandine Gasc, Sarah Marley, Marcus Salton, Laura Schillé, Paul J. Wensveen, Shih‐Hung Wu, Adriana C. Acero‐Murcia, Orlando Acevedo‐Charry, Matyáš Adam, Jacopo Aguzzi, Irmak Akoglu, M. Clara P. Amorim, Mina Anders, Michel André, Alexandre Antonelli, Leandro Aparecido Do Nascimento, Giulliana Appel, Stephanie Archer, Christos Astaras, Andrey Atemasov, Jamieson Atkinson, Joël Attia, Emanuel Baltag, Luc Barbaro, Fritjof Basan, Carly Batist, Julio Ernesto Baumgarten, Just T. Bayle Sempere, Kristen Bellisario, Asaf Ben David, Oded Berger‐Tal, Frédéric Bertucci, Matthew G. Betts, Iqbal S. Bhalla, Thiago Bicudo, Marta Bolgan, Sara Bombaci, Gerard Bota, Martin Boullhesen, Robert A. Briers, Susannah Buchan, Michal Budka, Katie Burchard, Giuseppa Buscaino, Alice Calvente, Marconi Campos‐Cerqueira, Maria Isabel Carvalho Gonçalves, Maria Ceraulo, Maite Cerezo‐Araujo, Gunnar Cerwén, Adams A. Chaskda, Maria Chistopolova, Christopher W. Clark, Kieran D. Cox, Benjamin Cretois, Chapin Czarnecki, Luis P. da Silva, Wigna da Silva, Laurence H. De Clippele, David de la Haye, Ana Silvia de Oliveira Tissiani, Devin de Zwaan, M. Eugenia Degano, Jessica Deichmann, Joaquin del Rio, Christian Devenish, Ricardo Díaz‐Delgado, Pedro Diniz, Dorgival Diógenes Oliveira‐Júnior, Thiago Dorigo, Saskia Dröge, Marina Duarte, Adam Duarte, Kerry Dunleavy, Robert Dziak, Simon Elise, Hiroto Enari, Haruka S. Enari, Florence Erbs, Britas Klemens Eriksson, Pınar Ertör‐Akyazi, Nina C. Ferrari, Luane Ferreira, Abram B. Fleishman, Paulo J. Fonseca, Bárbara Freitas, Nicholas R. Friedman, Jérémy S. P. Froidevaux, Svetlana Gogoleva, Carolina Gonzaga, José Miguel González Correa, Eben Goodale, Benjamin Gottesman, Ingo Grass, Jack Greenhalgh, Jocelyn Gregoire, Samuel Haché, Jonas Hagge, William Halliday, Antonia Hammer, Tara Hanf‐Dressler, Sylvain Haupert, Samara Haver, Becky Heath, Daniel Hending, Jose Hernandez‐Blanco, Dennis Higgs, Thomas Hiller, Joe Chun‐Chia Huang, Katie Lois Hutchinson, Carole Hyacinthe |
| Year: | 2025 |
| Type: | Scientific Journal |
| Station: | Pacific Northwest Research Station |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.70021 |
| Source: | Global Ecology and Biogeography. 34(5): e70021. |
Abstract
Aim: The urgency for remote, reliable and scalable biodiversity monitoring amidst mounting human pressures on ecosystems has sparked worldwide interest in Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), which can track life underwater and on land. However, we lack a unified methodology to report this sampling effort and a comprehensive overview of PAM coverage to gauge its potential as a global research and monitoring tool. To address this gap, we created the Worldwide Soundscapes project, a collaborative network and growing database comprising metadata from 416 datasets across all realms (terrestrial, marine, freshwater and subterranean).
Location: Worldwide, 12,343 sites, all ecosystem types.
Time Period: 1991 to present.
Major Taxa Studied: All soniferous taxa.
Methods: We synthesise sampling coverage across spatial, temporal and ecological scales using metadata describing sampling locations, deployment schedules, focal taxa and audio recording parameters. We explore global trends in biological, anthropogenic and geophysical sounds based on 168 selected recordings from 12 ecosystems across all realms.
Results: Terrestrial sampling is spatially denser (46 sites per million square kilometre—Mkm2) than aquatic sampling (0.3 and 1.8 sites/Mkm2 in oceans and fresh water) with only two subterranean datasets. Although diel and lunar cycles are well sampled across realms, only marine datasets (55%) comprehensively sample all seasons. Across the 12 ecosystems selected for exploring global acoustic trends, biological sounds showed contrasting diel patterns across ecosystems, declined with distance from the Equator, and were negatively correlated with anthropogenic sounds.
Main Conclusions: PAM can inform macroecological studies as well as global conservation and phenology syntheses, but representation can be improved by expanding terrestrial taxonomic scope, sampling coverage in the high seas and subterranean ecosystems, and spatio-temporal replication in freshwater habitats. Overall, this worldwide PAM network holds promise to support cross-realm biodiversity research and monitoring efforts.