We applied for and won an extra £1K of funding for us to purchase 2 x Zoom F3 recorders with contact microphones and pre-amps. Over the summer we have had two MSc students – Jemima Smith and Muskan Bhatia – collecting a significant number of soil acoustic recordings from 3 field sites at Stokes Park (Urban environment), Honeygar Farm (Somerset rewilded dairy farm) and Monks Wood (woodland regeneration chronosequence). The work at Stokes Park in Bristol is located next to the M32 motorway so a transect away from the M32 provides data on anthrophony. We had experiments investigating the acoustic indices recorded for microphones spaced at different distances in relation to the motorway anthrophony versus below ground bio and geophony. This research suggests that certain indices such as the bioacoustic index (BI) are less sensitive to anthrophony. We are also investigating the variation of acoustic indices across Honeygar and Monks Wood with the aim to relate this evidence to our previous work on soil biogeochemistry.



Starting in October, we have an MRes student – Robbie Sidhu – who will be working closely with Efe Okekporo at Sheepdrove farm in order to assess soil acoustics and greenhouse gas flux over a year. For this we have purchased a Zoom F8nPro multi- channel recorder for soil acoustics and an AudiMoth for aboveground soundscapes. Due to the significant ecological and biogeochemical monitoring taking place at this site, this will provide a significant dataset to interpret the acoustic complexity both above and below ground for a whole year.