BC Bioacoustics
What is an ARU? An Autonomous Recording Unit is a recording device you can put out in the environment to listen to the sounds of wildlife. They are not unlike Game Cameras for sound. The study of sound in nature, bioacoustics, is a rapidly expanding field of research. Because ARUs can record just about any organism that makes noise, they are the perfect tool for collaboration. By standardizing BC’s bioacoustic methods, and providing a space for the communication of research plans, we are hoping to make it possible for researchers to work collaboratively across the province. For an example of how this could work, take a look at the ABMI website from collaborations in Alberta.
Open Source ARUs
If you are looking for a less expensive ARU, that can be personalized to match just about any project, check out these AudioMoths from Open Acoustic Devices. They are cheap, very small and work well with citizen science projects.
Recording Schedules
One great thing about SongMeter units from Wildlife Acoustics is that you can share and download recording schedules for each model of unit. Listed below are the recording schedules for each available unit.
To use these recording schedules, simply download the file, modify the schedule to suit your needs by changing location and/or prefix (you will need the mobile or desktop app for configuring these files from the wildlife acoustics website) and upload them onto your ARU.
SM-mini/SM-micro* - Three screen shots of settings from phone app.
*SM-micros have an internal microphone, which produces and amplifies background noise over certain frequencies. We do not recommend these units.
A basic recording schedule for you!
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Each species on the right has experienced wide-spread and dramatic declines in British Columbia in recent history. If you want to learn more about the status of any of these, you can click on the image on the right.
In order to study acoustically active species at risk, we propose a set of recording standards that can be used to study many birds, terrestrial mammals, amphibians and insects. The settings are as follows…
Record for 3 minutes of every 15 minute period (3 on, 12 off) from 1.5 hours before sunset until 1.5 hours after sunrise.
Set your sampling rate to anywhere between 24 and 41 KHz
And that’s it!
If you are studying any ‘sonic’ (terrestrial wildlife that produces human-audible sound) organisms in BC, we recommend considering this schedule. A set of recording standards will be produced and published here very soon, but until then contact us if you would like copies of this schedule for any project you are undertaking.
Helpful Bioacoustic Links
As we build this webpage, you may need to find some alternative resources for the time being. Additionally, there are a number of required readings and helpful protocols for anyone starting a bioacoustics project.
Before choosing a tool it is important to know what tool is best for your data and what you want to do/ask with it. For example, WildTrax is particularly good for ‘point count style’ processing (https://www.wildtrax.ca/home), where you process a number of small chunks of data (3-10mins each) from each station in a project via simultaneous visual and acoustic scanning of a subset or the entirety of the avian community. If you are working on an individual species or a small group of species that you would like to explore precise vocal behaviour or search many recordings for (eg. dozens or hundreds of hours) of recordings for, rapid acoustic scanning may be better suited for your work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSlI3JQA6rw)
Open Acoustic Devices - This group makes the best ARUs on the market. The AudioMoth is very small, very cheap and very adaptive. To use it to its full capacity you need either some hardware or some coding skills, but it works very well for just about any basic bioacoustic question. There are some downsides. The mic is not the best quality (it’s not bad for being basically invisible) and you can’t record relative to sunrise or sunset (at least I haven’t been able to figure out how yet).
You can support bigger ARU companies, but you can’t support a better one. They don’t pay us to say anything. (https://www.openacousticdevices.info/audiomoth)
Wildtrax - An online platform for managing, storing, processing, sharing and discovering biological and environmental sensor data. Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) and the Bioacoustic Unit at the University of Alberta (U of A). (https://www.wildtrax.ca/home)
Bioacoustic Unit Protocols - Run, in some way, by both the same and different people as wiltrax, the bioacoustic unit website has a number of helpful protocols and similar documents. (http://bioacoustic.abmi.ca/resources/protocols/)
Ecoacoustics Research Group - A very helpful resource for understanding acoustic indices and their usefulness. (https://research.ecosounds.org/)
WILDLABS - A very helpful message board when dealing with ARUs and ARU equipment. This is especially helpful if you are using AudioMoth as most people working with major ARU modifications (internal GPS, writing your own firmware, using different batteries etc) use these ARUs. (https://www.wildlabs.net/)
This page is still under construction, but we hope to have a map with all our ARU locations on it and to include more information on the specific devices we will be using!