From Science.org:
Scientists can tell within days whether a grove of trees has been felled anywhere in the world, thanks to satellite imagery. But when it comes to knowing what’s happening in real time to the species that live there, researchers remain woefully blind.
“We have good technology that can monitor forests from above,” says Emiliano Ramalho, an ecologist and scientific director for the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, a Brazilian nonprofit research organization working in the Amazon rainforest. “But this does not monitor what’s under the canopy.” Now, thanks to technological advances such as automated species detection from audio recordings and analysis of DNA shed into the environment, conservation scientists think it’s possible to assemble increasingly comprehensive and up-to-date views of biodiversity across huge landscapes.