Project Overview

Sounds of the Pantanal – The Pantanal Automated Acoustic Biodiversity Monitoring Program

During July 22-23, 2013 an International Scientific workshop was held jointly with scientists from the INAU / UFMT (Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Áreas Úmidas) program and the UFMT Department of Computation. The meeting on “Automated Acoustic Biodiversity Monitoring” was coordinated by Professor Dr. Charly Schuchmann, University of Bonn, Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig (ZFMK), Bonn, Germany.

The workshop was attended by more than 30 professors, IT students, and participants of the Post-Graduate Program in Environmental Physics.

This meeting resulted in the founding of a new research unit on Computational Bioacoustics within the “Pantanal Automated Acoustic Biodiversity Monitoring Project” of the INAU / UFMT / CNPq program, comprising specialists on database and GIS design, signal processing, hardware design, and artificial intelligence applications. This newly established interdisciplinary research group CO.BRA (Computational Bioacoustics Research Unit) will focus on the development of modern technologies necessary for automated assessment studies in environmental sciences. The CO.BRA team will work jointly with scientists and curators of the UFMT Bioscience Institute.
During post-workshop meetings all necessary administrative and management steps were taken on the processing of bioacoustic and image data, including the incorporation of zoological collections, remote sensing, and environmental parameters.

All assembled scientific information will be made available by CO.BRA / UFMT specialists on an open-access Pantanal Biodiversity Data Base.

The Science without Borders Program of the Brazilian Government (CsF / CNPq / INAU) supported the CO.BRA research activities with grants at various academic levels between 2013 – 2016.

The INAU / INCT program will be continued with the second phase of Pantanal research (INAU II) for additional six years, starting in 2017 until 2022.