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Introduction
Bernie Krause, one of the founders of Soundscape Ecology (aka ecoacoustics), introduced the terms, geophony, biophony, and anthropophony, as well as the concept of the acoustic niche hypothesis (ANH), to the field.
Currently, he dedicates his time to the transformation of field data he has collected worldwide into accessible works of art in the form of symphonic orchestral pieces (see The Great Animal Orchestra Symphony for Orchestra & Wild Soundscapes, BBC commission 2014), ballet scores (Alonzo King LINES Ballet, 2015), and contemporary art public space sound design installations (https://www.fondationcartier.com/en/exhibitions/le-grand-orchestre-des-animaux). Krause is presently working on his 7th book.
Additional affiliations
January 1989 - May 1995
California Academy of Sciences
Position
- Field Associate
Description
- Field recording and bioacoustic research
January 1968 - May 2017
Wild Sanctuary, Inc.
Position
- Designer
Education
January 1979 - May 1981
Publications
Publications (30)
Jérôme Sueur and colleagues introduce the acoustic components of biodiversity.
Since I first engaged with the ecology of sound fifty-three years ago, the density and diversity of wildlife acoustic signatures has diminished markedly. At some sites, as a direct consequence of anthropogenic climate change and other exploitive human endeavor, the biophony can no longer be heard in any form.
This essay of personal thoughts on my...
Natural soundscapes correspond to the acoustical patterns produced by biological and geophysical sound sources at different spatial and temporal scales for a given habitat. This pilot study aims to characterize the temporal-modulation information available to humans when perceiving variations in soundscapes within and across natural habitats. This...
Forests, deserts, rivers, and oceans
are filled with animal vocalizations
and geological sounds. We postulate
that climate change is changing
the Earth’s natural acoustic fabric.
In particular, we identify shifts in
acoustic structure that all soundsensitive
organisms, marine and
terrestrial, may experience. Only
upstream solutions might mitigate
t...
Soundscape ecology assumes that natural soundscapes consist of a combination of biophonies and geophonies, the acoustic examples that typically originate within the landscape. The fruition of soundscape recordings and ecoacoustic data in the author's production is intimately connected to the immersive and process-oriented approaches to installation...
A guide book that informs the young and old, how to engage, by listening and recording, natural soundscapes. It covers an overview of sound in our culture and ways to listen to natural soundscapes with and without technology. It includes simple listening exercises and field recording methodologies using very simple and accessible gear and it addres...
Climate change is an important cause of the irreversible transformation of habitats, of the rapid extinction of species, and of the dramatic changes in entire communities, especially for tropical assemblages and for habitat- and range-restricted species, such as mountaintop and polar species.
Since 1968, Bernie Krause has traveled the world recording the sounds of remote landscapes, endangered habitats, and rare animal species. Through his organization, Wild Sanctuary, he has collected the soundscapes of more than 2,000 different habitat types, marine and terrestrial. With powerful illustrations and compelling stories, Krause provides a...
An early exposition of the ways in which bioacoustic patterns are formed and maintained in healthy habitats. The concept formed the basis for the later descriptive structure of soundscapes, which are comprised of three basic sources: geophony, biophony, and anthropophony.
An over-view of the effects of human endeavor on wild soundscapes
A cultural, anthropological, and scientific overview of the ways in which the non-human animal world taught humans to dance and sing.
The soundscape was recorded in four selected places in Sequoia National Park CA, to quantify and assess the diurnal and seasonal
character of the park’s soundscape. The recording sites were selected to represent a combination of elevation and vegetation
diversity. Hour-long sound recordings were made by four individuals at each place during fall, s...
We summarize the foundational elements of a new area of research we call soundscape ecology. The study of sound in landscapes
is based on an understanding of how sound, from various sources—biological, geophysical and anthropogenic—can be used to understand
coupled natural-human dynamics across different spatial and temporal scales. Useful terms, s...
This article presents a unifying theory of soundscape ecology, which brings the idea of the soundscape—the collection of sounds that emanate from landscapes—into a research and application focus. Our conceptual framework of soundscape ecology is based on the causes and consequences of biological (biophony), geophysical (geophony), and human-produce...
The concept of the soundscape was first introduced by R. Murray Schafer in 1977, and was described as including all of the sound from a particular environment that reaches the human ear. In the past several years, mostly as a result of technological developments in field recording and data analysis, it has become necessary to focus more specificall...
Audio media is one of the most important, yet least considered and valued elements of exhibit design for public spaces. The historical and cultural roots of this oversight are considered in this document, along with ways to mitigate the problems through the implementation of powerful new delivery technologies and conceptual design.
Using the sound signatures of four representative sites within Sequoia National Park to test for evidence of habitat health, the biophonies and geophonies,were recorded at selected times during each of the four seasons beginning in October, 1991 and ending in August, 1992, and analyzed with respect to frequency niches, temporal expression of sound,...
To encourage visitors to listen to and record natural soundscapes (biophonies) within the U. S. national parks, the U. S. National Park Service commissioned the authorship of a training guide designed for educational rangers. The rangers, in turn, would then introduce visitors to the concepts of "quiet zones", critical listening, and capture within...
A visitor activity overview and guide for listening and recording natural soundscapes.
What is it that drives humans, whales, birds, and many other animals to make music? In a fascinating Perspective,
Gray
and her colleagues compare the ways that birds, whales, and humans make music and ask the provocative question: Is music universal?
Species specific calls within an ecosystem evolve to adjust to the physical acoustic constraints of that ecosystem as well as the constraints imposed by the spectal content of the calls of other species occupying that ecosystem. The result is a rich texture of sound spread over both the audible (human) and inaudible spectrum with changing patterns...
The Niche Hypothesis is the first bioacoustic expression of frequency and temporal bandwidth discrimination noted in the collective sonic output of a given habitat. It posits that organisms generate sound signatures that are either cooperative or competitive with one another, but unique to each biome.
The first iteration of the niche hypothesis and the foundational concepts for the field of Soundscape Ecology.
Questions
Questions (2)
Projects
Projects (2)
IGlobes / https://www.cnrs-univ-arizona.net/
Christian Lorenzi, Léo Varnet, Etienne Thoret, Richard McWalter, Yves Boubenec, Régis Ferrière, François-Michel le Tourneau, Bernie Krause
The term “soundscape” describes the relationship between a landscape and the composition of its sound. More precisely, a soundscape corresponds to “all sounds, those of biophony, geophony, anthrophony, emanating from a given landscape to create unique acoustical patterns across a variety of spatial and temporal scales” (Krause, 1987; Krause et al., 2011).
Natural soundscapes contain a wealth of information of biological/adaptive value for humans and non-human animals. It is also a fact that natural soundscapes currently change as a result of human activities and climate change and their subsequent (deleterious) effects on biodiversity. Thus, monitoring soundscapes and clarifying the human and non-human animal capacities to perceive soundscapes should be useful to assess biodiversity and direct/indirect human impacts on biomes and biotopes around the world.
Our research program at IGlobes will focus on the following questions:
What sort of acoustic/auditory cues are used by the human and non-human animal auditory systems when perceiving natural soundscapes ?
Do humans and non-human animals use these cues to assess/infer biological and geophysical aspects of a given biome or biotope?
Could this inform current work in ecological acoustics, such as attempts to assess biodiversity in biotopes and biomes around the world based on acoustic recordings of soundscapes?
Our first research project aims to assess whether or not and to which extent humans and non-human animals perceive how soundscapes vary with landscape patterns and processes. This issue is addressed by processing natural soundscapes recording in distinct habitats (same or different biomes) via computational models of human auditory processing. Preliminary results indicate that soundscapes associated with a given habitat may have a unique acoustic signature in the spectral and temporal modulation domains. For instance, diurnal and seasonal variations for a given habitat are associated with salient changes in specific spectral and temporal (AM and FM) cues. Additional results indicate that soundscapes and their variations can be classified automatically based on these perceptually-inspired representations. Psychoacoustical experiments using synthetic textures are now warranted to assess whether or not these modulation cues and changes in modulation cues are perceived and used by human or non-human observers.
Preliminary results are now published in the following article:
Thoret, E., Varnet, L., Boubenec, Y., Ferriere, R., Le Tourneau, F.-M., Krause, B. & Lorenzi, C. (2020). Characterizing amplitude and frequency modulation cues in natural soundscapes: A pilot study in four habitats of a biosphere reserve. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.147, 3260-3274.
http://fondation.cartier.com/#/en/art-contemporain/26/exhibitions/2638/now-on/2640/the-great-animal-orchestra/
