A synergy of disease, climate change, pollution, exotic species and habitat loss, is pressuring anuran populations worldwide. In the USA, while overall anuran population declines are clearly evident, species that will be hardest hit are hard to predict. The spatial and temporal monitoring of anuran populations needs to be improved if the signs of further population failures are to be identified and remedies sought. The ideal means to increase the coverage of data is to put out sensors that would detect frogs, or have highly trained researchers conduct surveys. However, both these options are cost-prohibitive. A more cost-effective means to gather these data is to take advantage of the many volunteers interested in the fate of anurans. The limitation to date has been the time-consuming and inherently variable success in training those volunteers to recognize anuran vocalizations. In the proposed research, machine-learning algorithms and statistical analysis of sonograms will be used to provide reproducible, standardized identification of calling anurans in real time. A novel use of mobile devices (e.g. iPods, phones, and tablets) is proposed to identify and map anurans. The vocal recognition software will be developed as application (app) for mobile devices. By producing an efficient and intuitive app, that integrates with an accompanying social network an army of potential volunteers can be involved in mapping the abundance and range of anurans. While this proposal takes advantage of cutting-edge technology in terms of voice recognition, connectivity and social media, its purpose is not to advance any one of those branches of technology. Rather it applies existing technology in a novel way to increase participation in this aspect of citizen science by more than an order of magnitude, and bring the cost of automated voice recognition down by almost three orders of magnitude (from close to $1000 to ~$1). In providing a standardized means to recognize anuran calls, data quality and the reliability of data gathered by volunteers will be improved.
General statement of project importance Frogs and toads are excellent indicators of habitat quality, not just of their spawning sites, but also of adjacent uplands. These creatures are experiencing an unprecedented collapse in populations due to habitat loss, pollution, and novel diseases. As the faltering of amphibian populations may presage wider ecological problems, it is important to document where species are most affected. In the proposed research, an application (app) will be developed for smart phones and other mobile devices that will use cutting edge voice-recognition software to identify frogs and toads. Currently the average age for volunteers conducting anuran surveys is about 50. By using modern social media and portable device technology the goal of this proposal is to engage a younger audience. The affordability of the system will make it appropriate for classroom use, and it has the potential to spur studies in ecology, physics, geography, and math, as the students consider the data, sonograms, and maps that the software will produce. Through active dissemination we believe this app could quickly be adopted by thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of users, many of whom would be new contributors to citizen science.
