Margaret A. Price, Keith Attenborough, and Nicholas W. Heap — Sound Attenuation through Trees: Measurements and Models

Yield

4 of 119 paragraphs kept (3.4%). Target: 35%+ — ⚠️ BELOW target.

Thesis

Mature woodland humus layers do not behave as locally reacting acoustic grounds · ch. 0

Argument

1. Woodland attenuation shows a characteristic peak-dip-rise spectral shape — ch. 1
2. Trunk scatter cannot alone explain forest high-frequency sound attenuation — ch. 1 └─ #builds-on → Woodland attenuation shows a characteristic peak-dip-rise spectral shape
3. Ground-effect interference fades at higher frequencies and longer ranges — ch. 1

Annotation Roundup

Question

• Mature woodland humus layers do not behave as locally reacting acoustic grounds — Useful acoustic ecology note: a forest floor is not a standardized grass impedance surface; the double-layer (porous humus over soil) structure shifts ground-effect peaks. Worth chasing for soundscape methodology.
• Trunk scatter cannot alone explain forest high-frequency sound attenuation — Could the leaf-off leaf-on contrast at one site map onto site-to-site foliage-density gradations reported here as a validity check? Xref
• Trunk scatter cannot alone explain forest high-frequency sound attenuation — Core evidence for the leaf-off hypothesis: foliage is an independent attenuator proportional to foliage density, so measuring the same site leaf-on vs leaf-off isolates foliage.
• Ground-effect interference fades at higher frequencies and longer ranges — Directly supports the leaf-off hypothesis design for the soundscape polyad: these are the frequencies/ranges where foliage must be doing the work, which is the experimental window where leaf presence vs. absence will show.
• Woodland attenuation shows a characteristic peak-dip-rise spectral shape — If leaf-on spectra show a foliage-driven mid-to-high frequency rise that collapses in leaf-off, the signature shape itself becomes the leaf presence detector in the soundscape method.