CalloftheWildAAM.pdf (2.19 MB)
The call of the wild: investigating the potential for ecoacoustic methods in mapping wilderness areas
journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-07, 06:44 authored by Jonathan Carruthers-Jones, Alice EldridgeAlice Eldridge, Patrice Guyot, Christopher Hassal, George HolmesThe critical importance of wilderness areas (WAs) for biodiversity conservation and human well-being is well established yet mapping criteria on which WA management policies are based take neither into account. CurrentWA mapping methods are framed in terms of absence of anthropogenic influence, and created using visual sattellite data, obviating consideration of the ecological or anthropogenic value of WAs. In this paper we suggest that taking the acoustic environment into account could address this lacuna. We report the first investigation into the potential for ecoacoustic methods to complement existing geophysical approaches. Participatory walks, including in situ questionnaires and ecoacoustic surveys were carried out at points along transects traversing urban-wilderness gradients at four study sites in the Scottish Highlands and FrenchPyrenees. The relationships between a suite of six acoustic indices (AIs), wilderness classifications and human subjective ratings were examined. We observed significant differences between five out of six AIs tested across wilderness classes, demonstrating significant differences in the soundscape across urban-wild gradients. Strong, significant correlations between AIs, wilderness classes and human perceptions of wildness were observed, although magnitude and direction of correlations varied across sites. Finally, a compound acoustic index is shown to strongly predict mapped wild-ness classes (up to 95% variance explained MSE 0.22); perceived wilderness and biodiversity are even more strongly predicted. Together these results demonstrate that the acoustic environment varies significantly along urban-wild gradients; AIs reveal details of environmental variation excluded under current methods, and capture key facets of the human experience of wildness. An important next step is to ascertain the ecological and anthropogenic relevance of these differences, and develop new automated acoustic analysis methods suited to mapping the environmental characteristics of WAs. Taken together, our results suggest that future management of WAs could benefit from ecoacoustic methods to take the biosphere and anthroposphere into account.
Funding
ENHANCE; H2020; Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 642935
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Science of The Total EnvironmentISSN
0048-9697Publisher
ElsevierExternal DOI
Volume
695Page range
133797Department affiliated with
- Music Publications
Research groups affiliated with
- Sussex Humanities Lab Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2019-09-04First Open Access (FOA) Date
2020-08-06First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2019-09-04Usage metrics
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