Ecoacoustics for context-rich direct and indirect trophic interaction data and ecological network construction

Understanding species interactions is critical for ecology and conservation, yet traditional monitoring methods often lack spatiotemporal resolution and important contextual information. The growing field of ecoacoustics enables remote sensing across large spatiotemporal scales and the monitoring of otherwise cryptic communities. This provides direct and indirect evidence of interactions by detecting characteristic acoustic signatures. Investigating species-interactions through ecoacoustics presents a unique opportunity to enhance the construction, inference, and interpretation of ecological networks, advancing the frontier of next-generation biomonitoring. A synthesis on the application of ecoacoustics to the study of ecological interactions is, however, lacking, hindering adoption of this approach across a broader range of contexts. This review explores the potential of ecoacoustics to detect and infer predator-prey interactions across a diverse range of contexts. We outline how individual interactions can be detected from specific acoustic signatures like feeding sounds, alarm calls and shifts in prey behaviour, each supported by case studies from the literature. When used in conjunction with other methods, ecoacoustics can provide contextual information that can for guide inference of trophic networks by approximating structural properties of networks. Ecoacoustics ultimately offers a scalable, cost-effective tool for identifying interactions, and monitoring and constructing trophic networks across a diverse range of ecological contexts, for which we envisage this article providing a foundation.