Virtual Lab: Passive Acoustic Monitoring Materials

This is a collection of videos from past presentations to several different audiences, made available while we work on new videos that cover the full Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) pipeline. Because of this, some might have specific audience-focused examples, but we think they’re worth watching if you’re interested in learning about PAM.

Cornell Course: Intro to Conservation Bioacoustics

The lectures we’ve made available in the playlist below provide a foundation in the use of sound to assess biodiversity, monitor animal populations, and make conservation decisions. In this course, we cover the basics of how sound is recorded and visualized, how animals produce and perceive sounds, and how to select recording equipment that is appropriate to the question and application. The course lectures also build skills in acoustic data analysis including manual annotation, template detection, and machine learning approaches.

Full PAM Pipeline

  • PAM Overview (from Black Rail monitoring workshop)

    (1 hr 35 min)

    Defining research goals, defining experiment, programming equipment, deployment, data & metadata, automated analysis, pre-trained machine learning (BirdNET), custom machine learning models

Research & Survey Design

  • Framing the Research Question

    (7 min)

    This presentation was created and delivered by Laurel Symes as part of the BEAT Y1 program, covering how to refine your research questions, and examples of the types of PAM research questions.

  • Experimental Design

    (20 min)

    This presentation was created and delivered by Larissa Sugai as part of the BEAT Y2 program, covering factors to consider when designing your bioacoustic survey, the most common survey approaches, and using PAM wisely.

Preparing for Deployment

  • Equipment Overview

    (4 min)

    This video provides a brief overview of some of the equipment and options for passive acoustic monitoring.

  • Deployment & Data Management

    (33 min)

    This video provides strategies, suggestions, tips, and logistical considerations for collecting PAM data and organizing and curating those data. Specific topics include: metadata, field checklists, site selection and recorder set-up, software for file management, and lessons learned in the field.

  • Deployment, Metadata, and Practicalities

    (42 min)

    This is a presentation given by Dr. Laurel Symes in 2022 as part of the BEAT Y1 program. Topics include: metadata, assigning site and ID codes, recorder set up, deployment sheets, programs for file transfer and organization, and practicalities for PAM projects.

Manual Analysis & Machine Learning