Using soundscapes to detect variable degrees of human influence on tropical forests in Papua New Guinea |
| |
| Authors: | Zuzana Burivalova Michael Towsey Tim Boucher Anthony Truskinger Cosmas Apelis Paul Roe Edward T Game |
| |
| Affiliation: | 1. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, U.S.A.;2. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science School, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane QLD 4001, Australia;3. The Nature Conservancy, Arlington, VA 22203, U.S.A.;4. The Nature Conservancy, Boroko, National Capital District, Papua New Guinea;5. The Nature Conservancy, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia;6. School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia |
| |
| Abstract: | There is global concern about tropical forest degradation, in part, because of the associated loss of biodiversity. Communities and indigenous people play a fundamental role in tropical forest management and are often efficient at preventing forest degradation. However, monitoring changes in biodiversity due to degradation, especially at a scale appropriate to local tropical forest management, is plagued by difficulties, including the need for expert training, inconsistencies across observers, and lack of baseline or reference data. We used a new biodiversity remote‐sensing technology, the recording of soundscapes, to test whether the acoustic saturation of a tropical forest in Papua New Guinea decreases as land‐use intensity by the communities that manage the forest increases. We sampled soundscapes continuously for 24 hours at 34 sites in different land‐use zones of 3 communities. Land‐use zones where forest cover was fully retained had significantly higher soundscape saturation during peak acoustic activity times (i.e., dawn and dusk chorus) compared with land‐use types with fragmented forest cover. We conclude that, in Papua New Guinea, the relatively simple measure of soundscape saturation may provide a cheap, objective, reproducible, and effective tool for monitoring tropical forest deviation from an intact state, particularly if it is used to detect the presence of intact dawn and dusk choruses. |
| |
| Keywords: | avifauna bioacoustics community forest management forest degradation hunting land use planning subsistence agriculture vocalizing biodiversity agricultura de sustento avifauna bioacú stica biodiversidad vocal caza degradació n del bosque manejo comunitario del bosque planeació n del uso de suelo |
|
|
