To Track Biodiversity, Researchers Are Turning to AI

The sounds of a forest — from the guttural croaking of frogs to the chirpy trills of birdsong — can be used to track biodiversity recovery, according to a study published today in the journal Nature Communications. Paired with artificial intelligence, soundscapes can provide a low-cost way to measure the health of an ecosystem.

Researchers looked at reforestation projects in a part of Ecuador where 90% of the tropical forest had been lost to logging. “We could only describe that the trees [were] regrowing,” says Jörg Müller, a professor of animal ecology at the University of Würzburg in Germany ...