Abstract Under the current global biodiversity crisis, there is a need for automated and noninvasive monitoring techniques that can gather large amounts of data cost-effectively at various ecological scales, from local to large spatial scales. These data can then be analyzed to inform stakeholders and decision-makers. One such technique is passive acoustic monitoring, which is commonly coupled with automatic identification of animal species based on their sound. Automated sound analyses usually require the training of sound detection and identification algorithms. These algorithms are based on annotated acoustic datasets which mark the occurrence of sounds of species inside sound recordings. However, compiling large annotated acoustic datasets is time-consuming and requires experts, and therefore, they normally cover reduced spatial, temporal, and taxonomic scales. This data paper presents WABAD, the World Annotated Bird Acoustic Dataset for passive acoustic monitoring. WABAD is designed to provide the public, the research community, and conservation managers with a novel and globally representative annotated acoustic dataset. This database includes 5047?min of audio files annotated to species-level by local experts with the start and end time and the upper and lower frequencies of each identified bird vocalization in the recordings. The database has a wide taxonomic and spatial coverage, including information on 91,931 vocalizations from 1192 bird species recorded at 72 recording sites in 29 recording locations (mainly countries) and distributed across 13 biomes. WABAD can be used, for example, for developing and/or validating automatic species detection algorithms, answering ecological questions, such as assessing geographical variations on bird vocalizations, or comparing acoustic diversity indices with species-based diversity indices. The dataset is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license that permits redistribution and reuse on the condition that the original work is properly credited.

Forestry is a major economic activity in boreal and temperate countries for the development of societies and logging to extract wood production has happened during centuries. This is the case of Eastern Canada where forestry and mining companies were the first to establish during colonization. Logs gathered by the historical loggings in Canada were carried by rivers because of a lack of infrastructure, through a method known as the log drive. Of the large volume of logs transported down the rivers, around 15% sank to the bottom of the water courses. The deposition of woody debris in lakes can affect spawning and shelter areas and nutrient availability, as well as release toxic elements, such as wood soluble components and mercury, and can create anoxic zones due to a restraint of oxygen renewal caused by the stratification of the watershed. The development of an oxygen-deprived environment favours the synthesis of methylmercury (MeHg), a toxic compound that is absorbed in aquatic organisms. Only a few research studies focused on the effects of such activities on the aquatic environments and organisms, stressing the need to acquire knowledge to better understand the impact of these past human activities on aquatic ecosystems. The goal of this review is to give an overview of the historical evidence of log drive in the World as well as the current knowledge regarding the impact of log drive on lake ecosystems. The existence of considerable knowledge gaps allows for the in-depth discussion about the problems associated with the practice of log driving in lakes, despite the lack of scientific consensus. This review improves our understanding regarding how the aquatic organisms have been affected by log driving and their resilience in order to make recommendations for ecological restoration in lake ecosystems.