The fledgling discipline of eco-acoustics has added a remarkable diagnostic tool to field biology: a valid and reliable way to prove the absence of our most secretive species. Where many species are incredibly hard to see, the needs of the genetic line still demand they reach out to potential mates. They do so through calling. Today, Royal Institution of Australia Editor-in-chief Ian Connellan talks to Professor David Watson from Charles Sturt University about the Australian Acoustic Observatory, and how acoustics will transform ecology.

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