Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
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Recording spots
Fig. 1.5
Sonic map created plotting recording sessions and sampling station along a sonic
transect, 900 m long, of a rural landscape (Northern Italy, Fivizzano Commune). The evident
depression observable on the
right
part of the maps is coincident with the presence of a noisy
stream (From Farina 2010, unpublished data)
Sonic ambience becomes an important source of information that acts at two
scales: a local scale dominated by foreground sounds (unpredictable in space and
time) and by cyclic background that becomes a landmark for some organism
functions.
Foreground and background sounds refer to the position of a sound source from a
listener. The foreground is an acoustic event close to the observer that can create an
immediate reaction in the listener and represents a signal of urgent information.
Background sounds, which can be used as landmarks, refer to an indistinct amount
of low-frequency sounds that results from the blend of several individual sound
sources degraded by distance.
The relationship between soundscape and landscape can be tentatively
discriminated according the background/foreground duality. The unpredictability
and the temporal variability of foreground sounds are less connected with landscape
configuration than the background. The foreground sound moving across the
landscape creates temporary sonic configurations, the sonotope, that when further
shaped by vocal organisms have been considered soundtopes.
Background noise is more constant and is more influenced by landscape config-
uration, which could depend on the fact that background sounds are the result of
coarser geophysical and anthropogenic processes. Landscape features such as forest
edges or cliffs can act as sonic barriers or acoustic amplifiers. Some background
sounds, such as ocean waves or winds and breezes, are constant and persistent in
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