Rainforest sound-check to track infectious disease risks draws interest

KOTA KINABALU: Sounds recorded using microphones could be used to help track infectious disease risks in the rainforests and other landscapes.

Researchers revealed this in a study published recently in "Trends in Parasitology", an international scientific journal.

The study discussed how listening to the sounds of an ecosystem can be used in understanding factors that drive the spread of diseases between animals and people.

The findings are the result of a partnership between researchers from University of Glasgow, Kinabatangan-based research institute Danau Girang Field Centre and the Rainforest Connection, a non governmental organisation which uses sound recording to monitor endangered species and send real-time alerts to prevent poaching and illegal logging in the rainforests.

The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society and the United States Department of State.

To track illegal activitiers, Rainforest Connection uses microphones to detect human noise in the forests.

These include sounds of chainsaws, gunshots, movements through the forests and speech.

The researchers describe how acoustic monitoring can be effectively used to strengthen early warning systems and improve disease surveillance.

"By recording the sounds that animals make, we can detect changes in wildlife that could impact human disease risk; for example, tracking the changes in frequency of animal calls to identify mass mortality in wildlife due to a disease outbreak," said Dr Kimberly Fornace from University of Glasgow.

"Acoustic data could be used to detect changes in the location or behaviours of animals in areas where zoonotic diseases (like malaria, yellow fever, rabies, trypanosomiasis and Rift Valley fever) exist and could pose a risk to humans and animals.

"While acoustic monitoring won't replace existing field-based methods used to track disease risk, we believe it could be a novel and useful tool when used in combination with current methods," Fornace added.

Echoing similar interest in the study was Dr Milena Salgado Lynn from Danau Girang Field Centre.

"Passive acoustic monitoring is typically used in wildlife conservation to investigate population dynamics and behavioural trends of animals that make noise, including sound we cannot hear, like echolocation," she said.

"More specifically, our work demonstrates how acoustic monitoring can be used to monitor the spread of zoonotic malaria from monkeys to mosquitoes to people.

"For mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, detection of human activities at times when mosquitoes are most active could indicate heightened disease risk and be used to identify where people are exposed to infectious mosquitoes.

"Within the Malaysian rainforests and plantation areas, we have now set up an acoustic monitoring grid to track when monkeys are moving into areas with mosquitoes."

Emilia Johnson, from University of Glasgow's School of Biodiversity, One Health and Veterinary Medicine, said: "Emerging infectious diseases pose a significant burden on global public health, and there is a need to better understand diseases that crop up at the boundaries where human activities and wildlife habitats meet.

"Sound recording provides an opportunity to collect and analyse useful data in real-time and over very broad scales. i This way, acoustic surveys can complement existing surveillance methods and offer important new insight into the dynamic ecosystems that underpin infectious disease epidemiology," Johnson said.

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