The acoustic communities : definition, description and ecological
role

Farina, A; James, P

Abstract

An acoustic community is defined as an aggregation of species
that produces sound by using internal or extra-body sound-producing
tools. Such communities occur in aquatic (freshwater and marine) and
terrestrial environments. An acoustic community is the biophonic
component of a soundtope and is characterized by its acoustic signature,
which results from the distribution of sonic information associated with
signal amplitude and frequency. Distinct acoustic communities can be
described according to habitat, the frequency range of the acoustic
signals, and the time of day or the season. Near and far fields can be
identified empirically, thus the acoustic community can be used as a
proxy for biodiversity richness.
The importance of ecoacoustic research is rapidly growing due to the
increasing awareness of the intrusion of anthropogenic sounds
(technophonies) into natural and human-modified ecosystems and the urgent
need to adopt more efficient predictive tools to compensate for the
effects of climate change. The concept of an acoustic community provides
an operational scale for a non-intrusive biodiversity survey and analysis
that can be carried out using new passive audio recording technology,
coupled with methods of vast data processing and storage.

Citation

role. BioSystems, 147, 11-20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2016.05.011

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 31, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jun 2, 2016
• Publication Date: Jun 2, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jun 6, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 2, 2017
• Journal: BioSystems
• Print ISSN: 0303-2647
• Electronic ISSN: 1872-8324
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Volume: 147
• Pages: 11-20
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2016.05.011
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2016.05.011