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Faculty Profiles: Sustainability Studied Through Bryan Pijanowski If a tree fell in the forest and no one was there to hear it, would it make a noise? That' is attempting to answer. While he doesn't doubt the existence of sound in the absence of humans, he is trying to determine exactly what those natural sounds are, and how the presence of people affects them. The answers have far-reaching implications for the planet. "Human domination of natural habitats has resulted in the loss of biodiversity, s an age-old philosophical question, but not unlike one that Bryan Pijanowski robbing areas of their natural sounds," said Pijanowski, a forestry and natural resources professor who last year launched the Global Sustainable Soundscape Net- work. "The loss of species has been so significant that some are concluding that we are experiencing the sixth extinction event." Funded through an initial $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Coupled Natural-Human Systems Program, the network brings together research- ers in science, music and psychology to understand how animals interact with each other, even across species. Some silent newts, for example, follow frog sounds to find the best breeding ponds, while certain species of birds use their incessant chatter to protect habitats. Global habitat modification — such as new construction on previously uninhabited land or the opening up of preserves to human recreation — can result in the loss of sound, unbalancing delicate ecosystems. "Interactions among species and their competition for acoustic space impact mate selection and predator-prey interac- tions. As a result, there's the potential to affect population and community dynam- ics," says Pijanowski, a faculty affiliate with the Center for the Environment. Researchers will coordinate four or Bryan Pijanowski south to the Baja Peninsula of Mexico; the Borneo Equatorial Rainforest in Malaysia; and Mediterranean landscapes in Tuscany, Italy. Pijanowski, who already has a library of 500,000 natural sound recordings taken from five soundscape monitoring sites to collect acoustic data from the Kenai Wildlife Refuge on the Alaskan Kenai Peninsula; the Midwest Temperate Ecosystems centering in the Chicago Wilderness planning area; the Sonoran Desert Region in southern California through northern New Mexico and sites in Tippecanoe County in Indiana and Costa Rica, is making software tools and sound file examples available to help those interested in becoming involved in the research. To hear some of his recorded natural sounds, go to http://1159sequoia05.fnr.purdue.edu/ bioscience. He's confident this project will lead to the creation of soundscape ecology, a new scien- fields," Pijanowski says. Writer: Phillip Fiorini is a senior writer/editor with Purdue Marketing and Media. tific field that will use sound as a way to understand the characteristics of a habitat and to emphasize the environmental significance of natural sounds. "Our goal is to develop standards and to support research activities to bridge related See the story on page 11 about Bryan Pijanowski's collaborations with Information Technology at Purdue for his research. 6 OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH