Project Summary:

The "Clickable Ecosystem" is being developed by Stuart Gage and his students at Michigan State University. Access via the web to a digital library of environmental acoustics enables the public to select different places at different times of the day to hear the "heartbeat" of ecosystems and it allows them to assess ecosystem health. The system is based on ½ hourly recording of acoustic signals to assess changes in the environment. A computer system automates recording of acoustic signals, weather data and images. Immediately after being recorded, acoustic signals are sent to a data server in the Computational Ecology and Visualization Laboratory via wireless, broadband, DSL or satellite communications depending on location and network availability.

When an acoustic signal is received by the server from a location, each of 11-1 KHz frequency bands is analyzed and the mean acoustic intensity is computed. Biological indices are also computed based on ratios of acoustic intensity in selected frequency bands. Acoustic signals, analysis results, ancillary observations (temperature, precipitation) and images are placed into a digital library using relational database technology and a web tool provides near real-time access to the library. Forty eight acoustic signals recorded each day provide an acoustic signature of each location monitored. The library of acoustic signals provides a rich accessible database to examine sounds produced by biological, mechanical and natural physical phenomena in the environment.