Connecting Massachusetts' landscapes to soundscapes

Keywords: Massachusetts, soundscapes, biodiversity, landscape
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 22

Abstract

Ecoacoustics is gaining attention in wildlife conservation as a reliable, low-cost approach to monitoring biodiversity over extended periods. The aggregation of all biological sounds in a location represents the acoustic diversity (AD), and AD is associated with biodiversity, and many soundscape ecology indices were developed to measure AD. This work aims to understand the relationship between soundscape indices, as a proxy of biodiversity of Massachusetts' forested landscapes, with descriptors habitat, live cover, and anthropogenic impact. Understanding these relationships is essential to balance development and conservation in human-dominated landscapes. We deployed passive acoustic recorders between July and August 2019, recording the dawn chorus from 5 am to 6 am. For each recording, we calculated the Acoustic Complexity Index, Bioacoustic Index, and the Normalized Difference Soundscape index, which have been associated with biodiversity. Habitat metrics included a measure of connectedness and human edge, while live cover was defined as the normalized difference vegetation index. Anthropogenic influence metrics included imperviousness, traffic, and nighttime lights (NTL). All indices showed strong associations with anthropogenic influence metrics, particularly traffic and NTL, indicating that human activities negatively affect acoustic diversity. The presence of edge had a negative effect on acoustic diversity, while connectivity had a positive effect. Although the presence of edges has been associated with positive biodiversity impacts, due to increased heterogeneity with conditions that generalist species could use, and with negative impacts attributed to the presence of increased pressure, this work shows that, in Massachusetts, edge effects affect acoustic diversity negatively.