THE Grapevine

SOUNDSCAPE ECOLOGY Soundscape ecology is a term used to describe the emerging new science of evaluating the living landscapes and marine environments of the world through their collective sounds and the acoustic relationships between living organisms. The preservation of natural soundscapes is now recognised as a conservation goal. Soundscapes are composed of sound from different sources. Sounds from organisms like the chirping of birds or the buzz of bees create the biophony; those from non-biological sources like water flowing in streams, waves at the beach or the wind in the trees are the geophony, and those produced by humans such as language and music, the anthropophony. Increasingly, soundscapes are being dominated by a subset of anthropophony, or technophony, which is the increasing presence of electromechanical noise. The recorded soundscape provides a wealth of…