Listening to Data: Seagrass Sonification

Listening to Data: Seagrass Sonification

On September 19-20th the Coastal Futures Conservatory led a field trip to the Virginia Coastal Reserve site and immersed us in a weekend of listening to the environment surrounding us. The Conservatory aims to integrate arts and humanities and implement them in scientific inquiry. Visit their website to learn more!

Matthew Burtner (http://matthewburtner.com/), a composer and professor at UVA who is part of the Conservatory, seeks to create sonifications of ecological processes. He used seagrass metabolism data that we collected using the aquatic eddy covariance technique to create a song of photosynthesis and respiration. The data was published in ASLO in an article titled “Dynamics of benthic metabolism, O2 and PCO2 in a temperate seagrass meadow.” Listening to the recording, you can hear the harmonic progression through the days of the week, and the pitch changes that are caused by variations in oxygen production and consumption.