ECOSoundSet: a finely annotated dataset for the automated acoustic identification of Orthoptera and Cicadidae in North, Central and temperate Western Europe

Abstract

Recent studies suggest a widespread and substantial decline in insect abundance and diversity across European terrestrial ecosystems. This entails an urgent need for effective large-scale insect monitoring methods to determine the extent of the problem and to understand the global and local mechanisms driving this decline. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) enables the monitoring of sound-producing insect populations and communities at an unprecedented temporal and spatial scale by remotely capturing sounds such as stridulations, timbalizations and wingbeats. However, currently available tools for the automated acoustic recognition of European insects in natural soundscapes are limited in scope. Hence, the development of algorithms capable of reliably identifying a broad range of European insect sounds will greatly enhance the ability of PAM to meaningfully assist in the characterization of sound-producing insect communities, especially orthopterans and cicadas. Large and ecologically heterogeneous acoustic datasets are currently needed for these algorithms to cross-contextually recognize the subtle and complex acoustic signatures produced by each species, thus making the availability of such datasets a key requisite for their development.