Research

Since 1929, the Macaulay Library has been documenting the diversity of life on Earth through the collection and preservation of recorded natural sounds and moving images. Our unique natural history collection provides an invaluable record of vocal communication, behavioral diversity, appearance in life, and other fundamental details (both acoustic and visual) about organisms in their natural habitats. In addition, our audio and video specimens serve as definitive records of a species' occurrence at specific place and time. These attributes have made our biodiversity media recordings a valuable research tool for many aspects of comparative biology, animal behavior, systematics, taxonomy, descriptive natural history, and applied conservation biology (see our publications page). Below are a few examples highlighting the many novel ways Macaulay Library recordings have been used for scientific research.

Case Studies

Displays of the Birds of Paradise

Edwin Scholes III, now Video Curator for the Macaulay Library, has painstakingly described the elaborate courtship displays of Carola's Parotia. His video specimens are available in the online archive for anyone to examine.

Recordings Attract Bermuda Petrels

To help draw displaced or prospecting pairs of cahow (Pterodroma cahow) to new nesting burrows on higher and safer ground, the restoration team needed recordings of vocalizations that could be transmitted to attract courting birds. This tactic has been successful with other colonial nesting species.

Anthropologist Studying Nahuatl

Jonathan D. Amith uses sounds from the Macaulay Library to elicit Nahuatl names and information about bird species from native peoples. Amith is creating the Nahuatl Learning Environment, an online encyclopedia of language, flora and fauna and many more aspects of Nahuatl culture.