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Lookup NU author(s): Will Dawson, Professor Darren Evans, Dr James Kitson, Dr Jordan CuffORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© 2026 The Author(s). Methods in Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. Understanding species interactions is critical for ecology and conservation, yet conventional network construction methods often lack spatiotemporal resolution and important contextual information. The growing field of ecoacoustics enables remote sensing across large spatiotemporal scales and the monitoring of otherwise cryptic communities. This provides direct and indirect evidence of interactions by detecting characteristic acoustic signatures. Investigating species-interactions through ecoacoustics presents a unique opportunity to enhance the construction, inference and interpretation of ecological networks, advancing the frontier of next-generation biomonitoring. Application of ecoacoustics to the study of ecological interactions is, however, currently lacking, hindering the promising application of this approach to a broad range of contexts. In this perspective article, we explore the potential of ecoacoustics to detect and infer predator–prey interactions and outline how individual interactions can be detected from specific acoustic signatures such as feeding sounds, alarm calls and shifts in prey behaviour, each supported by case studies from the literature. When used in conjunction with other methods, ecoacoustics can provide contextual information that can guide inference of trophic networks by approximating structural properties of networks. Ecoacoustics offers a scalable, cost-effective tool for identifying species interactions, biomonitoring and constructing trophic networks across a diverse range of ecological contexts, for which we envisage this article providing a foundation.
Author(s): Dawson W, Evans DM, Abrahams C, Kitson JJN, Collins L, Cuff JP
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Methods in Ecology and Evolution
Year: 2026
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 12/03/2026
Acceptance date: 24/02/2026
Date deposited: 26/02/2026
ISSN (electronic): 2041-210X
Publisher: British Ecological Society
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210x.70288
DOI: 10.1111/2041-210x.70288
Data Access Statement: No data were generated or used within this manuscript.
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