swampspect Picture 3

Part of my research has involved programming evolutionary simulations, and another part has involved creating a bioacoustical analysis program. Two such projects are available over the internet. Both are available as Free/Open Source software.

The spatial simulation re-implements and extends the model of sympatric speciation developed by Dieckman & Doebeli (1999, Nature). The simulation is provided as a java applet within a website that I used as the basis of a Masters level coursework practical. The image on the right above is taken from the simulation (showing divergence of a signal). The website should fully explain the simulation. If not, please let me know!

The bioacoustical analysis program is called Luscinia. It consists of three parts. First, a database that archives recordings. Second, a spectrogram on which measurements of signal units (ie bird song 'notes' or 'elements') can be measured and the measurements stored in the database. The image on the left above is a spectrogram of a swamp sparrow song made with Luscinia. Finally, the analysis part of the program uses modern techniques from computational linguistics, statistics and data-mining to compare and analyze songs. The website provides a manual. This software is fairly stable, but should be regarded as "beta" software.