The study, published in Nature Communications, could have implications beyond ecology. Companies such as L’Oreal and Shell have been investing in forest restoration projects worldwide. Dr Müller suggests that this automated approach could provide a standardized way to monitor these efforts and verify whether they are as successful as claimed.
Key takeaways:
- A group of researchers led by Jörg Müller, an ecologist at the University of Würzburg, have developed a method of using artificial intelligence to measure biodiversity in rainforests by analyzing animal sounds.
- The researchers took sound recordings from various sites in the Ecuadorean rainforest, some pristine and some previously cleared for agriculture, and used these to construct a list of species present.
- The AI models, trained with sound samples from elsewhere in Ecuador, were able to identify 75 bird species from their calls as accurately as human experts.
- This method could potentially be used to monitor the effectiveness of forest restoration projects funded by companies such as L’Oreal and Shell, providing a standardized way to measure their success.