Acoustic Metadata Management and Transparent Access to Networked Oceanographic Data Sets

Abstract

Abstract : Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) of sound-producing animals (e.g. marine mammals) is producing multi-year data sets in many locations. Such long-term data sets allow the investigation of questions related to the effects of environmental processes and anthropogenic activities on these animals at varying temporal-spatial scales. Preservation of acoustic metadata in a standardized format can prevent the loss of detailed information that is not captured in scientific publications and permits the analysis of decadal-scale data sets and beyond. The need for standardization is juxtaposed with the need to include new information for specific research questions that evolve over time. This work proposes a schema for organizing acoustic metadata that addresses many of the problems associated with the retention of metadata from long-term passive acoustic data sets and enables the incorporation of research-question specific details without the need for changes to the schema or its implementation. The long-term goals of this effort are to produce community data standards and software capable of organizing and archiving acoustic metadata associated with passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals. The software provides a reference implementation of the community standards in a scientific workbench setting. The workbench enables researchers to integrate queries for both biological and physical data by providing mediation services to support the retrieval of Internet-available data sets in a manner similar to those used for querying the acoustic data. The data are accessible from a variety of languages used by the scientific community for analysis and modeling. The Tethys server at Scripps now has data sets that cover over nine years, and published and submitted articles are demonstrating the benefits to the preservation of consistent metadata from long time-series data.