Acoustic Community Ecology

By employing both passive acoustic recorders and active acoustic sampling, our field work seeks to understand a) how the acoustic signals and signalling strategies of sympatric, closely related species diverge from each other, and b) the composition, structure and dynamics of bird acoustic communities across Indian habitats, with a particular focus on grassland and scrub habitats. The latter are both poorly understood and highly threatened, and we seek to employ passive acoustic monitoring paradigms over the long term to characterise long-term community change and inform conservation efforts. Using entirely non-invasive, non-intrusive methods, we hope to improve our understanding of these fragile habitats.