Anthony Vodacek of RIT

The rainforest of Ranomafana National Park in southeast Madagascar is rich in biodiversity, with many endangered and endemic species. Rochester Institute of Technology, Seneca Park Zoo, the University of Antananarivo, and Centre ValBio are collaborating to use remote sensing and other sensing technologies to record the biodiversity in and near the park. One goal of the work is to collect a variety of data to be used for a virtual reality environment of the rainforest for zoo visitors. The site selected for this simulation is a small stream valley in an area of dense secondary forest. To capture the ground and vegetation structure at the site, thirty-four ground-based lidar scans were made from the streambed and the adjacent hillsides. The hillside scans were done at sites where AudioMoth microphones were set to record sound the first 10 minutes of each hour for 68 hours. These audio data captured the soundscape (frequency and amplitude over time) and were dominated by the sounds of the insects and frogs at the site, although other sounds were captured such as human activity, birds, rain, thunder, and forest mammals (mainly bats and lemurs). Beyond capturing data for simulations, our analysis of these data demonstrates how these technologies can be used to study relationships between forest structure, weather, and the soundscape to provide insights for ecologists studying biodiversity.

Biography:

Anthony Vodacek is a Full Professor of Imaging Science. He received his B.S. (Chemistry) in 1981 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his M.S. and Ph.D. (Environmental Engineering) in 1985 and 1990 from Cornell University. His areas of research lie broadly in multi-modal environmental remote sensing with a focus on the coupling of imaging with environmental modeling for application to monitoring both terrestrial and aquatic systems. His specific expertise is in spectral phenomenology, image interpretation, aquatic optics including fluorescence lidar, and wildland fire monitoring. He has extensive collaborations in Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa, where he has worked on various teaching and research projects for over ten years. Vodacek is on the Fulbright Specialist roster, is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Great Lakes Research, is a Senior Member of IEEE, and supports the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society global initiative as the regional liaison to Africa.

Email:

Address:54 Lomb Memorial Drive, , Rochester, New York, United States, 14623