MonitoraSom: an easy path from Soundscapes to Ecology

Soundscape analysis for biodiversity monitoring with data from autonomous recorders has become a vital tool for biodiversity research. Yet workflows remain fragmented across multiple software and technical barriers make the analysis of such large datasets a challenging task. Here, we present “monitoraSom”, an R toolbox designed to facilitate the path from raw soundscape recordings to validated biological detections. This package includes (1) modular workflows adaptable to diverse study designs, (2) an efficient and responsive user interface for fast soundscape recording segmentation; (3) validation methods adaptable to most data availability scenarios, including an interface for manual validation, and (4) dynamic diagnostics for threshold optimisation to refine detection performance. The package is designed for scalability, with simple and easy to use batch processing and parallelisation options, as well as simple data formats, making it accessible to beginners and advanced users. By reducing the technical hurdles and ensuring reproducibility, it accelerates the transformation of acoustic data into ecological information, from rare species monitoring to community-level surveys.