Acoustic Biomonitoring
Biomonitoring refers to the regular monitoring of the condition of an ecosystem, a biotope, a biotic community, or individual animals and plants in order to determine the quality of the environment. The more regularly and standardized the data is collected, the more reliable the conclusions drawn will be. When citizen scientists are involved, the aim is to compensate for certain shortcomings by collecting a large amount of data points, while still ensuring that the data collection is as uniform as possible. The great advantage of this type of data collection is that the large number of participants in the collective of contributors is able to compensate for minor inaccuracies in individual data points.
Acoustic biomonitoring has the particular advantage that all recordings that have been archived are also available for later analysis. Experts can use this to verify statements about the occurrence of individual species in the future. In addition, the recording radius and the area covered is much larger than if, for example, a photo were taken. Photographs depend heavily on the quality of the camera, the lighting conditions, and the skill of the photographer. The microphone, on the other hand, covers a larger area, some of which may not be visible from the recording location, and the recording can be evaluated relatively easily later on.
Why is the morning concert particularly exciting for Dawn Chorus?
For many bird species, dawn is the crucial time when they sing their songs in a polyphonic early morning concert known as the “dawn chorus.” Behind every bird species that can be heard lies a whole network of biological relationships. Birds are therefore often considered indicator species. The sound recordings of the dawn chorus are therefore not only important for the scientific documentation of existing animal species—they also allow conclusions to be drawn about entire ecosystems.
The communal morning concert probably developed because there is particularly little air movement at this time of day. The night has led to uniform cooling and balanced temperature differences. As long as the sun cannot yet warm individual areas, there is little wind. Under these conditions, the singing carries particularly far. Another theory is that birds use the twilight of dawn for their conspicuous (courtship) songs because they are less visible to some predators at this time.
Dawn Chorus: Record as many variables as possible
The morning concert is not a static phenomenon: presumably, the different species want to avoid acoustic competition by joining the chorus at different times of dawn. Our Dawn Chorus score provides a beautiful illustration of this.
As spring progresses, we hear different species or individuals over time, but the weather and noise or light pollution also have a strong influence on the birds’ singing activity. Fluctuating populations, general species decline, and local habitat changes can only be tracked over many years.
Our request to you: In order to capture as many of these variables as possible, please make several recordings at comparable times from the same location – both on a weekday and on a Sunday or public holiday. Recordings made over a period of years from the same location on approximately the same date and at approximately the same time relative to sunrise are a “jackpot” for researchers. Recordings from every habitat are scientifically interesting and important, even if the location may seem “boring” to you.