Worldwide Soundscapes: A Synthesis of Passive Acoustic Monitoring Across Realms

Darras, Kevin F. A.; Rountree, Rodney A.; van Wilgenburg, Steven L.; Cord, Anna F.; Pitz, Frederik; Chen, Youfang; Dong, Lijun; Rocquencourt, Agnès; Desjonquères, Camille; Diaz, Patrick Mauritz; Lin, Tzu‐Hao; Turco, Théophile; Emmerson, Louise; Bradfer‐Lawrence, Tom; Gasc, Amandine; Marley, Sarah; Salton, Marcus; Schillé, Laura; Wensveen, Paul J.; Wu, Shih‐Hung; Acero‐Murcia, Adriana C.; Acevedo‐Charry, Orlando; Adam, Matyáš; Aguzzi, Jacopo; Akoglu, Irmak; Amorim, M. Clara P.; Anders, Mina; André, Michel; Antonelli, Alexandre; Do Nascimento, Leandro Aparecido; Appel, Giulliana; Archer, Stephanie; Astaras, Christos; Atemasov, Andrey; Atkinson, Jamieson; Attia, Joël; Baltag, Emanuel; Barbaro, Luc; Basan, Fritjof; Batist, Carly; Baumgarten, Julio Ernesto; Bayle Sempere, Just T.; Bellisario, Kristen; David, Asaf Ben; Berger‐Tal, Oded; Bertucci, Frédéric; Betts, Matthew G.; Bhalla, Iqbal S.; Bicudo, Thiago; Bolgan, Marta et al.

Magazine

Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. (Global Ecology and Biogeography)

Language

eng

Year of publication

2025

DOI

→ doi.org/10.1111/geb.70021

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Abstract

The urgency for remote, reliable and scalable biodiversity monitoring amidst mounting human pressures on ecosystems has sparked worldwide interest in Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), which can track life underwater and on land. However, we lack a unified methodology to report this sampling effort and a comprehensive overview of PAM coverage to gauge its potential as a global research and monitoring tool. To address this gap, we created the Worldwide Soundscapes project, a collaborative network and growing database comprising metadata from 416 datasets across all realms (terrestrial, marine, freshwater and subterranean).