蜜芽传媒

What can the sounds of the natural world tell us about the health of our ecosystems? Datshiane Navanayagam talks two sound ecologists in Scotland and Australia about using soundscape monitoring as a tool to help in conservation work.
Dr Denise Risch is a marine mammal ecologist and senior lecturer at the Scottish Association for Marine Science. For twenty years, she鈥檚 been involved in the study of aquatic soundscapes and investigates how marine species are impacted by man-made noise pollution. She鈥檚 currently involved in a project which uses underwater microphones to measure turbine noise in Pentland Firth strait and has been involved in a project to establish the effects of acoustic signals on harbour porpoises in Scottish waters.
Dr Elizabeth Znidersic is an Australian ecologist with a particular interest in wetland bird species. One of her main focuses is ecoacoustics and the application of sound recordings to monitoring the environment and restore ecosystems. She's worked in the US and extensively in Tasmania with the Parks and Wildlife Service. Her current project, 'Eavesdropping on wetland birds' uses sound recorders to detect secretive marsh birds that cannot ordinarily be seen, and she is about embark on a world-first trial into the effectiveness of call-playback systems to encourage dwindling species to return back to particular areas.