Friendly companions—Field studies of insect behavior and bioacoustics in new contexts with IoT and deep learning

Insects are among the most successful and behaviorally varied forms of life on earth and play important roles in ecology and agriculture. Unlike humans, they pay close attention to the senses of smell and touch (vibration) and similar attention to the senses of sound and vision. Vibration, sound, and vision involve physical processes which have mathematically grounded explanations, so are easily analyzed by computers. In recent years, statistical tools, machine learning, deep learning and networks of sensors, computers, and data-transfer methods (IoT) have been developed that help identify and analyze insect behavior features which enable entomologists to develop beneficial insect pest management methods and sustainable ecological practices. Recent examples are discussed.