Ecoacoustics is a relatively new cross-diciplinary science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

 that involves ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 and acoustics

Acoustics

Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of all mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acoustician while someone working in the field of acoustics...

. It differs from the closely related field of bioacoustics

Bioacoustics

Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion through elastic media, and reception in animals, including humans. This involves neurophysiological and anatomical basis of sound production and...

, measuring the acoustic properties of a whole environment (instead of isolating one lifeform or another) in order to better understand the complex dynamics of an ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

. It can be very useful in tracking populations of fauna

Fauna

Fauna or faunæ is all of the animal life of any particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is flora.Zoologists and paleontologists use fauna to refer to a typical collection of animals found in a specific time or place, e.g. the "Sonoran Desert fauna" or the "Burgess shale fauna"...

 that would be otherwise nearly unmeasurable.

Examples

On September 11, 2009 there was a so-called 'cricket crawl' where people freely sought to record a common true katydid and their recordings were uploaded to scientists to study.

See also

• Acoustic ecology
  Acoustic ecology
  Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is the relationship, mediated through sound, between living beings and their environment. Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer and his team at Simon Fraser University as part of the World...
  
  
• Acoustical oceanography
  Acoustical oceanography
  Acoustical oceanography is the use of underwater sound to study the sea, its boundaries and its contents.-History:The earliest and most widespread use of sound and sonar technology to study the properties of the sea is the use of an echo sounder to measure water depth...
  
  
• Animal communication
  Animal communication
  Animal communication is any behavior on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal. The study of animal communication, is sometimes called Zoosemiotics has played an important part in the...
  
  
• Animal language
  Animal language
  Animal language is the modeling of human language in non human animal systems. While the term is widely used, researchers agree that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language....
  
  
• Bioacoustics
  Bioacoustics
  Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion through elastic media, and reception in animals, including humans. This involves neurophysiological and anatomical basis of sound production and...
  
  
• Biomusic
  Biomusic
  Biomusic is a form of experimental music which deals with sounds created or performed by non-humans. The definition is also sometimes extended to included sounds made by humans in a directly biological way...
  
  
• Hydroacoustics
  Hydroacoustics
  Hydroacoustics is a general term for the study and application of sound in water. The term comes from Greek υδρο, water, and ακουστική, acoustics...
  
  
• Field recording
  Field recording
  Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product...
  
  
• Frog hearing and communication
  Frog hearing and communication
  Frogs and toads produce a rich variety of sounds, calls, and songs during their courtship and mating rituals. The callers, usually males, make stereotyped sounds in order to advertise their location, their mating readiness and their willingness to defend their territory; listeners respond to the...
  
  
• List of animal sounds
• Music therapy
  Music therapy
  Music therapy is an allied health profession and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their...
  
  
• Natural sounds
  Natural sounds
  Natural sounds include animal sounds, from the chirruping of crickets to the vocalisations of mammals. They also include the sounds of other natural phenomena, such as water sounds; for example, the sound of rain falling on the ground or on water, the sound of a waterfall, a rushing river, waves...
  
  
• Underwater acoustics
  Underwater acoustics
  Underwater acoustics is the study of the propagation of sound in water and the interaction of the mechanical waves that constitute sound with the water and its boundaries. The water may be in the ocean, a lake or a tank. Typical frequencies associated with underwater acoustics are between 10 Hz and...
  
  
• Vocal learning
  Vocal learning
  Vocal learning is the ability of animals to modify vocal signals in form as a result of experience with those of other individuals. This can lead to signals that are either similar or dissimilar to the model...
  
  
• Whale song
  Whale song
  Whale sounds are the sounds made by whales and which are used for different kinds of communication.The word "song" is used to describe the pattern of regular and predictable sounds made by some species of whales, notably the Humpback Whale...
  
  
• Zoomusicology
  Zoomusicology
  Zoomusicology is a field of musicology and zoology or more specifically, zoosemiotics. Zoomusicology is the study of the music of animals, or rather the musical aspects of sound or communication produced and received by animals....