Anurans, Acoustics and Anthropogenic Climate Change (AAACC) Lab

Anthropogenic climate change poses a great threat to biodiversity, as it influences geographical ranges, seasonal timing, phenological patterns, and species interactions, eventually resulting in species extinction (Gibbs and Breisch, 2001; Pecl et al 2017). As a co-author of a recent publication in Nature, we highlighted that anthropogenic climate change has emerged as a great threat to amphibians (Leudtke et al 2023). Amphibians are considered “The Canaries in a coal mine” and serve as biological indicators to study the effects and impacts of anthropogenic climate change as they have several life traits that make them vulnerable to these changes. In India, there are no long-term standard monitoring programmes on amphibians, which has resulted in a complete lack of data on how and to what extent the climate crisis is affecting amphibians. This limitation allows one to identify the mechanism and test hypotheses on anthropogenic climate change acting on amphibians (Seigerwald, 2021).

Anurans are the most threatened group of vertebrates, more than mammals or birds (Leudtke et la 2023). Anurans communicate through mainly acoustical signals (calls) and multimodal communication (gestural movement of foot and hand, shapes, size, colour and movement of vocal sacs and chemical cues) (Starnberger et al., 2014). Both signal production and reception are temperature-dependent (Gerhardt and Huber, 2003). In addition, the vocalization of anurans is relatively fixed and shows no evidence of vocal learning (Gerhardt, 1994) and hence there is a strong genetic component associated with vocalization. The phenology of acoustic signals generally synchronizes with and relies on environmental cues (Corn 2003). Gibbs and Breisch (2001) documented phenological shifts in six species of anurans in Ithaca (Listed in the methods section). These shifts are twice the rate observed in birds, trees and butterflies (Parmesan, 2007). Anurans in the temperate regions breed earlier in the calendar year with the increase in the average temperature (Blaustein et al. 2001; Gibbs and Breisch 2001; Benard 2015).

Principal Investigator:

Dr Gururaja KV, Dr TMA Pai Endowment Chair

The AAACC Lab is going to be a state-of-the-art laboratory that looks at the functional aspects of anurans, acoustics and impacts of anthropogenic climate change across varied land uses in the Western Ghats of India. Eventually, this will be a model framework to work across India for standard data collection, storage and dissemination methods of acoustic data.

The AAACC lab aligns with the following SDGs

9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure,

11: Sustainable Cities and Communities,

13: Climate Action,

15: Life on Land and

17: Partnerships to achieve the goal.

What we do

Active and Passive Acoustic Monitoring: We use standard devices for both active and passive acoustic monitoring across different species and landscapes in urban, peri-urban areas and in the Western Ghats.

Research: We test the acoustic hypotheses proposed, namely – a. The morphological adaptation hypothesis (Wallschlager, 1980); b. The acoustic adaptation hypothesis (Morton, 1975); c. The acoustic niche hypothesis (Krause, 1993); d. The acoustic habitat hypothesis (Mullet et al., 2017), and e. An acoustic community hypothesis (Farina and James, 2016).
Data analytics: We use various software (Raven Pro 1.6.1, Audacity, and R) along with AI for acoustic data analysis.
Design and development of PAM: We have identified the issues in the low-cost acoustic monitoring devices. We are working on developing an in-house PAM device.
Long-term acoustic monitoring: We have identified over 30 places for long-term monitoring. Of which, 26 are operational as of today.
Outreach: We conduct workshops on amphibians and acoustics.