A deafening silence: a lack of data and reproducibility in published bioacoustics research?
Open accessAbstract
A study of 100 papers from five journals that make use of bioacoustic recordings shows that only a minority (21%) deposit any of the recordings in a repository, supplementary materials section or a personal website. This lack of deposition hinders re-use of the raw data by other researchers, prevents the reproduction of a project's analyses and confirmation of its findings and impedes progress within the broader bioacoustics community. We make some recommendations for researchers interested in depositing their data.
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Reproducibility remains one of the field's weak spots.
“Reproducibility remains one of the field’s weak spots.”
From Listening forward: emerging roles of bioacoustics in ecology, evolution, and conservation (2026) · cites this paper as Baker and Vincent 2019
Fewer than one in four bioacoustics papers actually deposit their recordings in open repositories, leaving most analyses effectively unverifiable.
“Fewer than one in four bioacoustics papers actually deposit their recordings in open repositories, leaving most analyses effectively unverifiable (Baker and Vincent 2019).”
From Listening forward: emerging roles of bioacoustics in ecology, evolution, and conservation (2026) · cites this paper as Baker and Vincent 2019
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Cites
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The potential for acoustic individual identification in mammals
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Listening forward: emerging roles of bioacoustics in ecology, evolution, and conservation
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“Fewer than one in four bioacoustics papers actually deposit their recordings in open repositories, leaving most analyses effectively unverifiable (Baker and Vincent 2019).”
- Authors
- Baker, E., & Vincent, S.
- Affiliations
- Natural History Museum (GB)
- Venue
- Biodiversity Data Journal
- Publisher
- Pensoft Publishers
- Published
- 2019-10-30
- Volume
- 7
- Pages
- e36783-e36783
- ISSN
- 1314-2828 (ISSN-L)
- 1314-2836
- PMC
- PMC6834726
- OpenAlex
- W2982703100
- Cited by
- 23
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 2.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Biodiversity Data Journal (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Natural History Museum, London (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- ZooKeys (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Institution) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Research Data Management Practices
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Scientific Computing and Data Management
- Keywords
- bioacoustics, data deposition, data sharing, reproducibility, research data management, supplementary materials, research data reuse
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