What is the Eclipse Soundscapes Project Studying?
General Overview
Citizen scientists are volunteers who work with scientists to help collect and analyze scientific data. The Eclipse Soundscapes: Citizen Science Project (ES:CSP) is studying how eclipses affect life on Earth. Eclipse Soundscapes citizen scientists will help collect and analyze observations and sound data from the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse and the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. The observations and sound data collected will help us understand the impact of the 2023 and 2024 solar eclipses on various U.S. ecosystems.
The Science
Recreating a 1935 Eclipse Study
One of the earliest recorded examples of eclipse-related citizen science is a study by Wheeler et al. in 1935, which invited the general public to help study how the August 31, 1932 solar eclipse affected animal and insect behavior. With the public’s help, the study compiled 498 personal observations from game wardens, naturalists, and members of the general public. The evidence noted changes in animal behavior and soundscapes during the eclipse.
Other more recent studies have done in-depth analyses of soundscapes during eclipses, utilizing modern recording devices. These include studies conducted by the National Park Services during the 2017 eclipse, which will greatly support this project’s efforts.
Why We Need Citizen Scientists!
Like Wheeler et al., ES:CSP will once again ask for the public’s help gathering data! This will help ES:CSP increase the number of observations and recording sites and the people available to analyze the data after the eclipses.
The most powerful scientific impacts of ES:CSP will be the increased use of a multi-sensory approach to scientific observation, the vast amount of soundscape data collected, the analysis of this soundscape data, and the training of new citizen scientists to collect and analyze soundscape data. All of these elements will help to advance soundscape ecology and scientific exploration.
Advancing Soundscape Ecology
Soundscape ecology is an emerging field that studies the acoustic, or sound, properties of ecosystems to better understand them. Eclipses provide a rare opportunity to advance soundscape ecology research by studying how animals react to sudden, dramatic changes in natural stimuli. Since eclipse times are precisely known, studies like the ones being conducted by ES:CSP can be planned in advance.
Free and Open Source Data Sharing
The raw soundscapes data can be potentially useful to a wide range of projects. To extend the usefulness of this project, all of the raw soundscape data will continue to be available via the NASA’s Solar Data Analysis Center (SDAC), Rainforest Connection online platform, and referenced via the Zenodo platform for data citation. Any software developed by ES:CSP will be open source and hosted on the GitHub platform.