BioAcoustica: a free and open repository and analysis platform for bioacoustics

Edward Baker,Vincent S Smith,Jon Hill,Ben W Price,S D Rycroft

doi:10.1093/database/bav054

Edward Baker, Vincent S Smith + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1093/database/bav054

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Journal: Database	Publication Date: Jan 1, 2015
Citations: 24	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of York, Natural History Museum

Abstract

We describe an online open repository and analysis platform, BioAcoustica (http://bio.acousti.ca), for recordings of wildlife sounds. Recordings can be annotated using a crowdsourced approach, allowing voice introductions and sections with extraneous noise to be removed from analyses. This system is based on the Scratchpads virtual research environment, the BioVeL portal and the Taverna workflow management tool, which allows for analysis of recordings using a grid computing service. At present the analyses include spectrograms, oscillograms and dominant frequency analysis. Further analyses can be integrated to meet the needs of specific researchers or projects. Researchers can upload and annotate their recordings to supplement traditional publication.Database URL: http://bio.acousti.ca

Highlights

Collections of recorded wildlife sounds have huge potential as a resource for systematics, e.g. [1,2,3]; biogeography, e.g. [4,5,6] and automated identification, e.g. [7,8,9]
In order to maximize the potential of these collections they need to be accessible, and linked with the broader infrastructures of biodiversity informatics
Records of this type are aggregated by the Global Biodiversity Informatics Facility (GBIF: http://gbif.org) and can be used in studies of global distribution of species

Summary

Introduction

Collections of recorded wildlife sounds have huge potential as a resource for systematics, e.g. [1,2,3]; biogeography, e.g. [4,5,6] and automated identification, e.g. [7,8,9]. They generally do not deal with recordings containing multiple taxa or allow for annotation of regions containing spoken metadata or extraneous noise, e.g. The BioAcoustica Scratchpad has been extended to allow for the annotation of audio files and for annotated sections of audio files to be analysed from within the Scratchpad by creating a custom content type (node type in Drupal) and additional code modules (using PHP and JavaScript) to handle the annotation and analysis of sounds.

Results

Conclusion