Background
Norwegian forests are crucial ecosystems for people and for biodiversity. Humans rely upon forests for industry and recreation, and 48% of Norway’s red-listed wildlife species are associated with forests. Monitoring is a crucial part of managing and conserving forest biodiversity, but assessing the state of biodiversity in forests can be time-consuming and expensive. Emerging techniques like bioacoustics and AI can facilitate more rapid biodiversity monitoring and assessment, but more investigation is needed to establish methods for drawing rigorous inference from these emerging technologies.
In this project, a motivated student will explore methods for using acoustic data to understand forest biodiversity. This project will focus on acoustic data collected as part of the BioDivAbove project, which also includes intensive sampling of insects, fungi, and forest structure in order to identify areas of high biodiversity in Norwegian forests.
Research Aims
The goal of this project is to identify useful associations between metrics derived from acoustic data and biodiversity. The student may explore using bird species presence and/or vocal activity as well as acoustic indices as indicators of areas with high biodiversity, and subsequently high conservation value. We note that no previous work with acoustic data is necessary – training and guidance will be provided. Insights from this project will inform forest management in Norway and possibly contribute to identifying other areas of high biodiversity in Norwegian forests.
What you will learn
The student will gain a foundational understanding of biodiversity monitoring and conservation, techniques for acoustic data handling and processing, and basic skills in applied statistical analysis and data management in R. The student will have the opportunity to use two years of acoustic data collected from the forest at Hurdal, as well as the opportunity to participate in fieldwork for the collection of a third year of acoustic data (if interested).
We offer a supportive learning environment with opportunities to interact with researchers from UiO and NMBU. The student will be part of a group working on a variety of bioacoustics and biodiversity projects and opportunities to participate/collaborate on other projects will be available. The student will also have opportunities to present their ongoing work to the BioDivAbove team.
If interested, please reach out to Kristin Brunk (kristin.brunk@ibv.uio.no)