Read the full story at the Southern Illinoisan.
A Southern Illinois University Carbondale scientist is asking the public to keep its ears open in the name of monitoring biodiversity.
Starting May 1, Brent Pease, an assistant professor in the forestry program, will kick off Sounds of Nature, a community research project aimed at understanding changes in biodiversity over time by recording and monitoring so-called “soundscapes,” the collective sounds emanating from a given area. The effort runs through July 15 and plans call for it to continue annually.
In the first year of the project, Pease is focusing efforts in Southern Illinois and specifically its southern-most 16 counties. Pease, along with forestry graduate student Elaine Metz and Shasta Corvus, of the School of Forestry & Horticulture, plan to monitor some predetermined areas. But they hope to fill in the gaps with help from citizen scientists.
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