Amazing stuff!
Want a better harvest or a nicer looking garden? Play some soil sounds!
Sounds of a happy soil!
"The team ... has found that soundscapes recorded from soil differ depending on its level of restoration. ...
So what do soils sound like?
“It’s basically clicks and crackles and pops, and little clicky sounds that these contact microphones can pick up,” ...
“It’s a reflection of all the little worms and the beetles and the ants and spiders, et cetera, moving around in the soil.” ...
“Both the revegetated and reference state sites had a much more diverse soundscape than the degraded soil ...
These plots were at varying levels of degradation: 2 had recently been cleared, 2 had been cleared and revegetated 15 years ago, and 2 were remnant vegetation.
The researchers are also trialling playing sounds to soil, with early evidence suggesting it helps to encourage better microbe growth. ..."
"Special recordings ... show this chaotic mixture of soundscapes can be a measure of the diversity of tiny living animals in the soil, which create sounds as they move and interact with their environment. ..."
From the abstract:
"Restoring and monitoring soil biodiversity has never been more important. Ecoacoustics is emerging as a promising tool to detect and monitor soil biodiversity and was recently effective in a temperate forest context. However, there is a need to investigate the efficacy of soil ecoacoustics in other ecosystems and bioregions.
Here, we applied ecoacoustics tools and indices (Acoustic Complexity Index, Bioacoustic Index, Normalised Difference Soundscape Index) to measure soil biodiversity in an Australian grassy woodland restoration chronosequence, spanning three age classes. We collected n = 240 soil acoustic samples from two cleared plots (continuously cleared through active management), two woodland plots undergoing restoration (revegetated 14–15 years ago) and two plots of remnant vegetation over 5 days in Mount Bold, South Australia. We used a below-ground sampling device and sound attenuation chamber to record soil invertebrate communities, which were also manually counted.
We found that acoustic complexity and diversity were significantly higher in revegetated and remnant plots than in cleared plots, both in-situ and in sound attenuation chambers. The acoustic complexity and diversity also significantly associated with soil invertebrate abundance and richness.
Synthesis and applications.
Our results provide new support that ecoacoustics can help monitor soil biodiversity in different forest restoration contexts, including in UK temperate and Australian grassy woodlands. This technology holds promise in addressing the global need for effective soil biodiversity monitoring methods and protecting our planet's most diverse ecosystems."
Fig. 1 Study sites and location (Mount Bold, South Australia).
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