Methods to measure biological sounds and assess their drivers in a tropical forest

The study of soundscapes and biological sounds is becoming the focus of increasing scientific attention. Studying biological sounds involves the deployment of acoustic sensors to record sounds and the identification of animal species and other sources of sound in audio recordings. In addition, data extracted from audio recordings may be pooled together with ecological and human activity data to investigate the drivers of biological sounds. We provide a detailed method description of our study on biological sounds in a tropical forest and their drivers along a gradient of disturbance in Southeast Cameroon. We designed and implemented a research protocol to:•make large scale audio recordings and identify animal species detected;•collect ground-truth data on mammal and bird species;•collect climate, habitat, and human activity data and describe remoteness and accessibility.