How the sweet sounds of tropical katydids can benefit rainforest conservation

Laurel Symes is a biologist who uses bioacoustics to study tropical katydids in Central America, and she joins us to play some of her hypnotic rainforest recordings and say how tracking these insects' interesting sounds can aid rainforest conservation. 

Based on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, she uses machine learning to detect and identify these creatures, which are grasshopper-like insects that are important to the rainforest food web, because they eat a lot of plants and are in turn eaten by a lot of other species, including birds, bats, monkeys, frogs, and more.

Here’s this episode’s top news:

• 2019 was second-hottest year on record, 2010s hottest decade
• Indigenous lands hold 36% or more of remaining intact forest landscapes
• Update to biodiversity treaty proposes protecting at least 30% of Earth
• One six-week expedition discovered ten new songbird species and subspecies in Indonesia

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