A study on the feasibility of creating a web-accessible Marine Mammal Sound Library based upon the collections at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

摘要

A universally accessible web-based marine mammal call library using the recordings collected over the years by William Schevill and William Watkins creates an opportunity for scientific studies requiring dependable reference datasets of sounds produced by a species in a defined geographic region during specific seasons. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Bioacoustics Lab, begun in the 1950s under the direction of Schevill and Watkins, possesses approximately 2000 analog recordings of more than 90 species of marine animals. Metadata, organized and stored in stand-alone PCs, already exists for each of these recordings. In addition, these recordings are backed up by a reference library of more than 9000 selected marine animal papers (Watkins et al. 1990). This study presents an assessment of the contents of this marine mammal acoustic collection, recommendations for species-specific reference datasets, and potential architecture and costs for a web-based library.