Passive acoustic monitoring as a complementary strategy to assess biodiversity in the Brazilian Amazonia

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a conservation instrument used to analyze and identify projects with potential environmental impacts, ultimately, providing mitigation strategies for decision-making (Ritter et al. 2017). In a timely debate on the conservation of the Amazon rainforest, Ritter et al. (2017) produced an essential discussion about EIAs, and reviewed three recent EIAs from infrastructure projects linked to current threats in the Brazilian Amazon basin. The authors highlighted shortfalls regarding biodiversity assessments in EIAs for the concession of roads, hydroelectric facilities and mining activities, and provided guidelines for three innovative and cost-effective methods to cope with highly diverse ecosystem: satellite remote sensing, species spectral signature, and DNA metabarcoding (Ritter et al. 2017). Although these methods are promising tools, we believe that practical solutions to sample and monitor biodiversity at large spatial and temporal scales should also take advantage from Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM), a reliable and cost-effective method that recently became widely employed to assess and monitor multiple animal taxa. Here, we advocate the use of PAM as an alternative and/or complementary tool for EIA in the Amazon basin. …