Amy McDermott

PNAS June 25, 2019 116 (26) 12580-12583

Figure: David Monacchi has spent the last 20 years hiking into some of the most remote habitats on Earth. He’s canoed through flooded Amazonian forests and tread deep into the jungles of Southeast Asia and Africa. But he isn’t on a quest for rare animals or for samples of their remains. Monacchi, a composer, is hunting for the ecosystem’s sound.

In February 2016, David Monacchi sets up the three-dimensional recording systems for the circadian 24-hour continuous recording in terra firme primary forest habitat in the Tiputini River area, Yasunì National Park near Coca, Ecuador. Image credit: Alex d’Emilia (photographer).

Sound is everywhere in tropical forests. Rain drips from water-slicked leaves, birds screech, monkeys titter and bellow, branches crack, wind moans, and insects chirp and buzz. Vibrations pierce the humid understory and echo through the airy canopy, creating a symphony of sounds that speaks to both artist and scientist.

Monacchi is harvesting artistic inspiration as well as data. The chirps and rattles contain information about how species interact with the environment and each other, as well as the health of the habitat. Sometimes Monacchi uses his recordings to inspire the public, sometimes to inform ecological research. “I’m trying to be at the edge of both worlds,” he says.

People straddling music and science often have a variety of titles. Monacchi usually describes himself as an interdisciplinary artist. Sometimes he prefers sound engineer or ecoacoustic composer.

Likewise, names for this field vary. For ecologists, the study of sound’s role in ecological processes is ecoacoustics (1). For composers, it’s soundscape ecology or acoustic ecology. Labels fall away as creative specialists in the arts, the natural sciences, or both come together to collaborate. They work with environmental sound for a variety of reasons—sometimes musical, sometimes scientific, and sometimes both. All strive to understand and explore the environment using sound.