README file 

Sounds of the natural word
Luiza Figueiredo Passos – ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4529-9950
Liverpool John Moores University 
Description 
Acoustic files recorded by autonomous recording units in different environments; Scotland, England, Brazil and Madagascar
Data collection Brazil: Field recordings were obtained using four autonomous recording units (ARU) (SongMeter SM3; Wildlife Acoustics Inc., Maynard, MA, USA). Two ARUs were installed in each location, 1.8 m above the ground, oriented north and south on a fixed post at AV (?20.479444° S, ?41.840277° W) and similarly at SMV (?20.490555° S, ?41.739444° W). Additional external omnidirectional microphones (External Acoustic Microphone for SM3, Wildlife Acoustics Inc., USA) were positioned facing east and west beside the ARUs to record sounds from all four cardinal directions simultaneously. Daily soundscapes were captured from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in one-hour intervals, at 16 bits per second and 44.1 kHz sampling rate.
Data collection Scotland and England: For this study, AudioMoth 1.1.0 recording units were used. In total during the month of June 2023 10 AudioMoths were deployed in England and Scotland.  AudioMoths were set to be active between 4am-9am and 5pm-9pm from 1st June 2023 – 30st June 2023 for the summer acoustic data. AudioMoths recorded for 1 minute and slept for 4 minutes during active periods, meaning 108 1-minute WAV. files were produced per day. This accounted for sunrise, to include the dawn chorus in the acoustic data, and dusk chorus. They recorded at a sampling rate of 48kHz with medium gain. Recording slightly earlier than sunrise and sunset allowed for the inclusion of any anthropogenic disturbances which cause earlier dawn and dusk singing in birds, such as light pollution and traffic noise which has been supported in the literature (Arroyo-Solís et al., 2013; Bermúdez-Cuamatzin, 2020; Da Silva et al., 2015; Gómez, 2022).
Data collection Madagascar: Field recordings were obtained using AudioMoth 1.1.0 recording units located at Mangabe Reserve in Madagascar. Audiomoths were located close to the forest floor, 50cm from the floor. Files were recorded at a sampling rate of 48kHz with medium gain. AudioMoths recorded for 1 hour and slept for 5 minutes for 24-hours. Data was collected between the 20th to 28th of January 2020.

Citation 
Figueiredo Passos, L (2026) Sounds of the natural world. [Data Collection] 
https://doi.org/10.24377/LJMU.d.00000263
Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons

Contact details 
l.figueiredopassos@ljmu.ac.uk
luizafp@gmail.com
Terms of use 
Deed - Attribution 4.0 International - Creative Commons
Project and funding information    
Funding was only obtained for the Scotland and England datasets.  Wild Animal Initiative: Developing an approach for Assessing the welfare of wild birds through the use of bioacoustics analysis  (S-2023-00038)

Contents  
All files are acoustic files (.wav) recorded using autonomous recording units (ARU). All files are names using the same structure: year month day_hour minute.wav

2025