Ecoacoustics: a new science to investigate landscape patterns and processes

The role of sound in the ecology of animal populations and communities across the landscape is the focus of ecoacoustics, an emerging interdisciplinary science (Sueur & Farina 2015). Sounds of geophysical (geophonies), biological (biophonies) and anthropogenic (technophonies) origin contribute to the ecological dynamic of freshwater, marine and terrestrial environments. The combination of geophonies, biophonies and technophonies characterizes the acoustic signature or soundscape in wild, rural and urban landscapes. The quality of the landscape is largely affected by the typology of its soundscape and in particular biophonies are good proxies of landscape biodiversity.Landscape assessment greatly takes advantage of ecoacoustics, and this is made possible by modern digital technologies (new time-setting vocal recorders, powerful metrics that process sound data in real time, and modeling procedures to mining big data).Ecoacoustics offers new powerful tools to investigate the relationship between the structure and the spatial arrangement of land mosaics, the distribution and abundance of animal populations and human dynamics. Definitively, ecoacoustics can contribute to improve the quality of the landscapes describing the distribution and quality of sound sources that may have an impact on humans and animals