Biodiversity XL Live: The Sound of Biodiversity

Yet another fascinating episode is coming up for the BiodiversityXL Live short livestream series: the Sound of Biodiversity! More and more different approaches and techniques are used, in the hope to gain more knowledge about biodiversity. They help us to look very detailed at individuals, species and ecosystems. But let's not forget about our ears. Sound can tell a lot about the presence of species, but also about their behaviour. Sounds we can hear, like bird songs, but also sounds we can not hear. How do we monitor biodiversity via sound?

Marine biologist Fleur Visser (NIOZ/University of Amsterdam) investigates whether increased noise levels influence the foraging behaviour of baleen and toothed whales, as a result of which they may obtain less energy. And is that due to an effect of the underwater sound on the predator, or on their prey? Understanding effects on predator-prey interactions is of strong importance in the overarching question as to how we, as humans, impact marine populations - and ultimately, our ocean’s biodiversity.

Dr. Dan Stowell (Naturalis) will discuss how animal sounds can be detected and classified with AI. Human activity is turning the sea into an increasingly noisy environment. Underwater noise from shipping, military sonar and seafloor explorations for oil and gas is causing problems for many – if not all - marine animals. For marine mammals, man-made sound is a problem because they depend on sound to hunt, to communicate and for navigation.

BiodiversityXL Live is the live broadcast series of our Centre of Excellence for Netherlands Biodiversity Research. It is the meeting place for scientists and students in the field of biodiversity. 

We have a 30-minute talk and discussion with scientists every third Thursday of the month at three o’clock. Topics: the overlap and gaps in research, multidisciplinary collaboration, funding, and more. You can watch it live and ask questions on YouTube, or watch it later on.