Get started
Work

Calibrated low-cost acoustic sensing as a digital upgrade for Malaise-trap-based functional biodiversity monitoring

Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Functional biodiversity plays a crucial role in sustaining agricultural ecosystems by providing ecosystem services such as pollination and conservation biological control. Conventional manual monitoring approaches are labor-intensive, often destructive, and limited in their ability to provide monitoring information with high temporal resolution. This study investigated the technical feasibility of integrating a calibrated low-cost acoustic sensor into an acoustic chamber attached to a Malaise flight-interception trap. A functional prototype was evaluated using six agriculturally relevant insect species. Each of 81 independent individuals per species contributed one flight event that was recorded simultaneously with a low-cost SPH0645 MEMS microphone and a PCB378A04 laboratory-grade reference microphone. Fundamental frequencies and putative harmonics were identified for all investigated species. In the strict combined MEMS+reference analysis, refined mean peak frequencies ranged from 152 to 554 Hz and mean band-averaged wingbeat amplitudes at the identified peaks ranged from 0.55 to 19.53 mPa. Mean paired signal-to-noise ratio at these peaks ranged from 4.6 to 33.3 dB. Peak-frequency measurements were generally highly consistent between microphones, whereas absolute amplitude showed more frequent species- and peak-dependent differences. The results demonstrate the technical feasibility of calibrated low-cost acoustic characterization within a Malaise-trap sensing configuration and provide a methodological basis for subsequent development and independent validation of automated insect-classification approaches.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoinf.2026.104021
Language: English
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,770
OpenAlex ID: W7204160468
FWCI:
Cites: 23
Cited by:
Related to: