On the trail of animal communication: In the Juni edition, Image of Science reports how biologists want to better understand wild and farm animals through the use of digital analysis methods. Refined recording techniques are used to record animal sounds and help analysis of the animal “languages” systems help systems of artificial intelligence.
It is chirped, grumbled, clicked …: Many land and water animals draw attention acoustically in different ways. The tones can fulfill a number of functions – they range from simple messages to more complex forms of communication. For a long time, the animal statements were examined with a lot of effort and only by human interpretation talent. However, modern technologies are now also finding its way into this research area.
In the first sub-article of the title theme “The Language of Animals”, BDW author Tim Schröder introduces some research projects in which biologists capture animal sounds and then search for characteristics and patterns in the data using AI techniques. The first animal in focus is surprising: researchers examine the importance of the click sound of the cod. They follow an interesting trace: the “dialects” of the fish of different origins may differ in such a way that they do not understand each other.
In another project, the focus is on the muzzle communication system. Anyone who says to whom with the cute journeyman should also clarify sophisticated technology. The author’s welfare can also benefit from analytical listening, the author reports: Certain patterns in the grunt of pigs can therefore provide indications of whether they feel good or stressed out, emerges from the article “The computer as an animal agent”.
Refined
In the second article, Schröder then goes into more detail about researching the most prominent lute producers in the animal kingdom: the birds. Through the AI-based analysis of their voices, biologists try to gain knowledge about the approaches, stocks and the condition of the animals. Sound recorder, for example, collects the loud passing birds on the German coast. A trained AI system can then hear what types it is. The technology can also serve the protection of endangered birds, reports Schröder. For example, acoustic sensors locate the nests of the rare quail kings in the high grass so that they can be protected from mowing machines. In addition, analyzes of bird voices provide insights into the health or nutritional status of the animals, the author writes in the article “Algorithms for bird research”.
This article is rounded off by an interview with the developer of the smartphone app “Birdnet”, which is used by many bird lovers, but also experts to identify bird species based on their sounds. “Many people touch bird voices,” emphasizes computer scientist Stefan Kahl from Chemnitz University of Technology.
Orcas understanding learning
In the third part, the focus is on intelligent marine mammals: Researchers have long been trying to decipher the language of the sword whales. As the BDW author Bettina Wurche reports, there are now promising developments. In a research project, an archive from Orca calls is created, whereby the sounds can be partially linked to behavioral observations. Above all, the marine biologists are looking for patterns in the sounds of the whales that indicate a language with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence. They have already encountered exciting information, emerges from the article “The call of the Orcas”.