Presentation by Karl-Heinz Frommolt

Organization of databases for scientific
cooperation in the fields of bioacoustics
Karl-Heinz Frommolt
Tierstimmenarchiv der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Museum für Naturkunde
www.tierstimmen.org
Frommolt databases
Background: the Animal Sound Archive
at the Humboldt-University Berlin
Currently ca. 110.000
Recordings:
• 1.800 Bird species
• 580 Mammalian species
• more than 150 species of
invertrebrates
• fishes, amphibians and
reptiles
Frommolt databases
History of the Animal Sound Archive
Prof. G. Tembrock, the founder of
the animal sound archive
1951: first recodings of animal voices by
Günter Tembrock
1952-1966: studies on acoustic behaviour of
red foxes
1958: documentary film „Lautforschung an
Vulpes vulpes L. und anderen Caniden“
1967: first record „Waldvögel“ (Birds of the
wood)
1983: Prof. G. Tembrock – emeritus
1995: the Animal Sound
Archive is transferred
to the Museum für
Naturkunde of the
Humboldt-Universität
Frommolt databases
Actual state of the Animal Sound Archive
- Part of the Museum of Natural History (Naturkundemuseum) which is belonging
to the Humboldt-University
- Closely related to the department of biology
- Duties:
- Conservation of the collection
- Own research in the field of bioacoustics
- Teaching
- Permanent staff:
-Curator
-Technican
- Temporary staff:
- Student employees (recently three)
- Students working on their diploma or master thesises
Frommolt databases
Large collections of animal voices worldwide
Animal sound collection
Number of
cuts
Number of species
birds
mammals
amphibians
insects
Macaulay Library of National
sounds, Cornell University,
Ithaca USA
>130 000
> 6000
> 100
75
einige
National Sound Archive,
British Library London
130 000
8000
800
800
700
ca. 110 000
1 800
580
52
150
Australian National Wildlife
Collection
60 000
Borror Lab of Bioacoustics,
University Ohio, USA
28 000
ca. 1000
some
some
some
FitzPatrick Sound Library,
Pretoria, South Africa
25 000
ca. 2500
Veprintsev Phonotheca of
Animal Voices, Russian
Academy of Science
10 000
500-600
Tierstimmenarchiv HU Berlin
Frommolt databases
For which porposes is the sound archive used?
Research in the field of bioacoustics
- Acoustic communication in animals (description of sounds, variability of sounds)
- Playback-experiments (response to sounds of the own species and of predators)
- Zoological systematics and evolution
- Voice production (models of sound generating apparatus)
- Physiology of hearing (species specific sounds in psychoacoustic experiments)
Nature Conservation
- acoustic docume tation of the occurence of species
- supporting the search for rare species
- bioacoustic monitoring
Public education
- Exhibitions in museums
- Guides for zoos and zoo schools
- Biology in schools
- popular scientific documentation
Homepage of TSA
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Documentation
• Sound recordings are
documented in a
database
• The database is freely
available at: www
.tierstimmen.org
• The data can be
viewed via the GBIFPortal
GBIF
Species: Parus montanus Conrad
Specimens/observations
Frommolt databases
Conservation of the collection
1800
1600
Analoque recording are
digitized with 96 kHz/24 bit
Recordings digitized (hours)
1400
Currently > 75 % of the analoque
recordings digitized
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Jan-02 Jul-02 Jan-03 Jul-03 Jan-04 Jul-04 Dec-04 Jul-05 Dec-05 Jun-06
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IT structures in the Animal Sound Archive
Search via Internet
www.tierstimmen.org
Access via GBIF
(only Metadata)
MySQL-Database
of the Animal Sound Archive
Mp3-Fileserver
Access controlled by
password
(in cooperation with Institute of
Applied Informatics, University Bonn)
Compression
(mp3-files)
Digitizing
96 kHz/24 bit
MS-Access-Database of the
Animal Sound Archive
(Documentation)
Analoque
Recordings
Bulk memory
CMS HU
Long term storage
(now ca. 3 Terabyte)
Fileserver TSA
(temporary storage)
At CD or DVD as
wav-file
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Web-based information system for bioacoustic research
Frommolt databases
Bioacoustic Monitoring
Acoustic type
material
Recording equipment
IT structures
A
B
Monitoring scenario
C
Software for pattern
recognition
Frommolt databases
Requirements on databases for cooperation
• Web-based cooperative access to metadata and audio files
• Online extensibility by external audio- and metadata
• Connection of external databases, allowing distributed data storage
• Online searching and browsing of metadata
• Interface for content-based search algorithms
• User rights controlling access to data and administrative functions
• Quality control of submitted data
• Online signal processing, visualization and annotation
Frommolt databases
Project IT structures
Project Information-infrastructure for web-based
cooperation in bioacoustics research (in cooperation
with Institut of Informatics, University Bonn)
http://audentify.iai.uni-bonn.de/
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Bunting (Emberizidae ) recordings presented in google earth
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Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla)
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Thank you for
your attention
Acknowlegements
- Prof. Michael Clausen
- Dr. Frank Kurth
- Rolf Bardeli