Emily is published!

In this work we show how measuring coral restoration progress can be supported with bioacoustic analysis to reveal unique soundscapes and communities!

We used passive acoustic monitoring and combined traditional counts of fish vocalisations with AI-driven analysis of entire soundscapes.
Combining these methods revealed different recovery rates: counts of fish vocalisations were similar between healthy and restoration sites, but the AI analysis of whole soundscapes grouped restoration soundscapes as more similar to degraded reefs.
This may reflect stronger recovery of fishes relative to other soniferous taxa, though these results also highlight the methodological differences between a targeted taxon-specific approach, and broad scale detection of soundscape variability.
 
In collaboration with Nature Seychelles, who run the coral restoration project in Cousin Island Special Reserve, we’re happy to share the first coral reef soundscape recordings from the Seychelles! The full dataset is available here: https://lnkd.in/e4hQ9zg6
 
A big thank you to all collaborators on this project… Charlotte Dale Luca Saponari Nirmal Jivan Shah Ben Williams, PhD Tim Lamont
 
This work took place during my MSc in Freshwater & Marine Biology at the University of Amsterdam. Fieldwork in the Seychelles was facilitated by a Madeleine Julie Vervoort Fond from the Amsterdams Universiteitsfonds (UvA Fonds). I had the pleasure of visiting Lancaster Environment Centre while working on this analysis. For upcoming projects I am based at MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre at the University of Lisbon!