Università degli Studi di Pavia

Centro Interdisciplinare di Bioacustica e Ricerche Ambientali

CIBRA is a member of the "International Bio-Acoustic Council" and a founder member of the recently created “European Network of Bioacoustic Collections for Taxonomy and Conservation”.

Some words about bioacoustics and the IBAC

Bioacoustics is a branch of zoology, strictly related to ethology, that investigates sound production and reception in animals, including man. Bioacoustics also concerns the organs of hearing and the sound producing apparatus as well as the physiological and neurophysiological processes by which sounds are produced and received. Finally it attempts to understand relationships between the features of the sounds an animal produces and the nature of the environment in which they are used and the functions they are designed to serve. Its development dates effectively from about 1950, when practical recording and analyzing methods became readily available to the scientific community.
The IBAC was founded in Denmark in September 1969 with the object of promoting international participation throughout the entire field of bio-acoustics activity. The first Chairman of the IBAC was Patrick Sellar; he was in charge until 1996; then, in the conference held at the University of Pavia, he was succeeded by Gianni Pavan.

IBAC EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Dr. Thierry Aubin (France), Prof. Dr. Matija Gogala (Slovenia),
Prof. Dr. Ole Naesby Larsen (Danmark), Richard Ranft (UK),
Dr. Maria Luisa da Silva (Brazil) and Prof. Dr. Dietmar Todt (Germany).

PREVIOUS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Gianni Pavan (Chairman), Richard Ranft (Honorary Secretary),
Thierry Aubin, Matija Gogala, Hong Yan, Michael Fine.

SYMPOSIA
Since its constitution, several symposia have been organized to promote contacts among researchers and students:
October 1971 : Kinross, Scotland
September 1972 : Als, Denmark
October 1973 : Rouen, France
November 1975 : Jersey, UK
September 1977 : Bramslevgaard, Denmark
October 1979 : Vadstena, Sweden
September 1981 : Sussex, UK
September 1983 : Songli, Norway
September 1985 : Texel, Netherlands
September 1987 : Florac, France
September 1989 : Cambridge, UK
September 1991 : Osnabruck, Germany
April 1994 : Mols, Denmark
October 1995 : Potsdam, Germany
October 24th - 26th, 1996 : XV IBAC, University of Pavia, Italy  (Program, Participants, Abstracts)
October 14th - 18th, 1997 : XVI IBAC, College Station, Texas A&M University, USA (short info)
April 6th - 11th, 1999 : XVII IBAC, Chartres, Paris, France (info)
September 3rd - 6th, 2001 : XVIII IBAC, Cogne, Italy (program)
August 10th-15th, 2003 : XIX IBAC, Belem, Brazil (info, downloadable proceedings)
September 15th-19th, 2005 : XX IBAC, Piran/Pirano, Slovenia (info)

Conference proceedings

In latest years, the abstracts of the IBAC meetings have been published on the Journal Bioacoustics. The abstracts of the XVII meeting which have been published on Bioacoustics Volume 13 No 1 (2002) : 77-102. The abstracts of the XVIII meeting are published on Bioacoustics Volume 13 No 2 : 175-207.

The proceedings of the XIX IBAC have been published on the Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências vol.76 no.2, June 2004. They are also available for download.

IBAC - International Bio-Acoustic Council

IBAC was founded in Denmark in September 1969 "with the object of promoting international participation throughout the entire field of bioacoustic activity". Its lofty title "reflect the intention that it should act as a referendum for and generally help in any way possible those who are engaged in the scientific study of biological sounds".

The principal objectives of IBAC are:

(a) To maintain a forum for the development of standards in such areas as analytical measurement, descriptive terminology, recording technique and archival documentation.

(b) To continue the policy of setting up symposia with a sufficiently informal atmosphere with inexpensive accommodation to attract and encourage young students to present their first papers, posters, demonstrations etc.and also for the presentation and discussion of tentative ideas in early stages of development.

(c) To promote technical advancement and international co-operation within the field of recording, analysis and archiving through symposia and information exchange.

Looking back over the twenty-five years since those first ambitions were declared at the meeting in Arhus, one can report simply that it spawned fourteen international symposia in eight different countries and sponsored the publication of the news bulletin Biophon running to twenty-four issues. Biophon was the means by which IBAC members kept in contact and received news of impending  conferences. Membership of IBAC and indeed Biophon itself was entirely free, the cost of production and mailing being born all those years by the Danish Natural Science Research Foundation.
Thus there was never any need to collect subscriptions or to encumber the executive committee with such impedimenta as a treasurer, accountant or auditor. An ideal institution, one would say.
Unfortunately, the Danish economy took a downward turn in 1983 and our grant was terminated. The final issue of Biophon appeared in July that year but, with the help of mail shots put out by the National Sound Archive in London, we continued to hold conferences, the latest having taken place in October 1995 at Potsdam in Germany.
Subscribers to Biophon, numbering around 450 world-wide, were used as the sounding-board for planning the new, bigger and definitive journal Bioacoustics. IBAC will continue to support the journal in every way possible. The headquarters of IBAC for 25 years was the Natural History Museum at Arhus, Denmark. From now it will transfer to the National Sound Archive (Wildlife Section), in London. Links with Arhus will nevertheless survive strongly through the presence there of IBAC's President, Dr. Poul Bondesen and the very supportive efforts of Dr. Poul Hansen who hosted the 1994 IBAC symposium in Mols.

Patrick Sellar
Chairman, IBAC 1969-1996
c/o Wildlife Section,
The British Library
National Sound Archive
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom

Contacts

Richard Ranft, secretary - Richard.Ranft@bl.uk
Wildlife Section
The British Library
National Sound Archive
96 Euston Road
London NW1 2DB
United Kingdom

Home Page of the Centro Interdisciplinare di Bioacustica e Ricerche Ambientali (CIBRA)
BIOPHON Vol. IX No 1
BIOPHON Vol. X No 1
Home Page of the Journal Bioacoustics

Page compiled by Gianni Pavan. Last update: October 2006.