A influência da bioacústica na evolução da ciência em Portugal. Interface da acústica e monitorização da biodiversidade

Mestrado em Gestão e Conservação de Recursos Naturais - Instituto Superior de Agronomia / Universidade de Évora

The animals produce sound for various purposes and the majority of the vocalizations have distinctive characteristics, which are used in the systematics and are useful in the documentation of biodiversity. Monitoring and documenting biodiversity are central tasks in nature conservation and the development of monitoring techniques is especially urgent in the context of the current biodiversity crisis. Bioacoustics proves to be a promising and powerful instrument for assessing biodiversity. This dissertation aims to do an historical analysis of the bioacoustics contribution to the study and conservation of biodiversity in Portugal, to understand how the different recent techniques may assist in monitoring the biodiversity and to test one of the most promising of its methods. This study has revealed that the first bioacoustics recording dates from 1977. Since then, the bioacoustics helped the study and documentation of various species and had special applicability in the conservation of bats and cetaceans in Portugal, with prospects to extend this applicability to other animal groups. Currently, there are powerful bioacoustics tools used on monitoring biodiversity whose limitations tend to be quickly overcome. This dissertation has also showed that to estimate densities, there must be taken into account a number of different factors to calibrate these tools.This dissertation is part of the body of work of the project "Natural Acoustic Landscapes in a Changing World" in order to preserve the recordings as part of our scientific heritage and an important source of documentation of biodiversity, past and present