Throughout March and April, we are featuring articles shortlisted for the 2024 Robert May Prize. The Robert May Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution written by an early career author. Becky Heath’s article ‘Spatial ecosystem monitoring with a Multichannel Acoustic Autonomous Recording Unit (MAARU)‘ is one of those shortlisted for the award.

The paper

What is your shortlisted paper about, and what are you seeking to answer with your research?  

Representative data from ecosystems is vital for determining how best they can be conserved and restored. I believe Acoustic Localisation Systems (ALS) may be one of the keystone technological shifts we see in environmental monitoring in the coming years. ALS allow us to record spatial elements of soundscapes which we can then use to determine where something is as well as what it is. Localisation has applications spanning tracking, counting and honing in on individuals. In this paper, we summarise recent developments in ALS, identifying factors limiting uptake by ecologists. We then introduce MAARU (Multichannel Acoustic Autonomous Recording Unit) which is an open-source ALS system that directly addresses barriers like cost, the need for specific expertise, and the inaccessibility of equipment.  

Were you surprised by anything when working on it?  Did you have any challenges to overcome? 

We had several hiccups getting MAARU off the ground, from managing the new soundcard and the enormous amount of data that comes from 6-channel recording – to designing a low-cost acoustic-passing casing that could survive the field for 6 months+! MAARU recorders first struggled through the British winter, the unluckiest of which stopped transmitting when its power cable was completely chewed through by squirrels (more unlucky squirrel actually). But with every iteration we’ve learnt more about how to do these things better (and use armoured cables).  

What is the next step in this field going to be?  

I think in ecology generally we’re undergoing a bit of an overdue digital revolution. Data collection, storage, synthesis and analysis are all changing (in many ways for the better) and I think the exact shape of the future is still pretty unknown. What I do hope for is more low-cost, long-term, multi-sensor monitoring solutions that are much less subject to bias from the surveyors or short-term variation caused by stochastic weather events. I think one way to address this is direct analysis of raw data (like images, audio, DNA, and beyond), collected regularly over long, weather-independent time periods. 

What are the broader impacts or implications of your research for policy or practice?   

I hope that MAARU makes high-quality spatial recording more accessible. These sorts of systems provide more detailed descriptions of environments that I hope will help researchers, conservationists, and policymakers more accurately track ecosystem changes at scale. By offering an affordable, open-source solution, I hope this tech encourages people to start using ALS developing analysis methods and collection protocols that can support biodiversity assessments, inform land-use policies, and improves conservation decision-making.  

The author

How did you get involved in ecology?  

I always loved animals – birds, frogs, bugs and everything, but never really realised bugs was a job that you could really do until it was a job that I ended up doing. I was lucky enough to choose a great degree at Exeter (Natural Sciences) that essentially let you cherry pick modules from all of maths, engineering and science. I followed the wind really and ended up specialising in computer science (I really liked programming) and agroecosystems. I was looking for something to do when I finished and found this PhD that was about designing computer systems for environmental monitoring and ended up here!  

What is your current position? 

I’m currently doing a postdoc at the University of Cambridge’s Zoology Museum in the Insect Ecology group, headed up by Ed Turner. Nowadays I’m not so focused on conservation tech exclusively but rather how these methods can be used to answer unknowns about agricultural land management. Specifically, I’m working on the RERTA (Riparian Ecosystem Restoration in Tropical Agriculture) project in oil palm landscapes in Sumatran Indonesia. This project is a large-scale land experiment formed of a 12+ year collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Nottingham University, IPB Universiti Indonesia and SMART Research Institute Indonesia. My job now is to work with researchers, smallholder farmers and industry to better understand the formation of restoration areas in agricultural landscapes with the hope of enhancing their efficacy in future.  

Have you continued the research your paper is about? 

MAARUs development is still ongoing but now led by the very talented Neel Le Penru at Imperial College London. Neel’s work is focuses on testing MAARU in different places with more challenging questions, so I hope lots more interesting use cases for these devices coming out of that soon. A little while ago we were also invited by Ed Baker and John Tweddle at the Natural History Museum London to deploy a small network of MAARU recorders in their gardens indefinitely. We’re hoping they’ll go in in the next couple of months so very much a watch this space when it comes to MAARU in that respect.

What one piece of advice would you give to someone in your field?  

I think trying new things, especially for early career researchers, is one of the most important things you can do. It can feel pretty intimidating to dive into a field you know absolutely nothing about, but those are often the best opportunities for learning and growing. There’s so much opportunity especially in interdisciplinary research now, and those kinds of skills usually aren’t covered in single-module degrees. So, if you can, get into new areas early on, especially if there’s something a bit rogue you’re interested in, I think you’re giving yourself a great chance.