Auditory Display of Spatial Microbiome Differences Based on Biological Classification
Author(s)
Sano, Fushi
Tokuno, Kihiro
Hu, Ze
Hiramatsu, Mamoru
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Abstract
Understanding the spatial heterogeneity of microbial communities is crucial for microbial ecology. While visualizations are common, sonification offers a complementary approach, leveraging human auditory perception. Existing microbiome sonification research primarily focuses on representing raw sequence data or overall presence, overlooking spatial differences in community composition. This paper introduces an auditory display system that sonifies microbiome data based on biological classification (Class and Genus), emphasizing these variations. Taxonomic information is mapped to musical parameters, including pitch and Frequency Modulation/Phase Modulation (FM/PM) synthesis. Sampling locations are associated with interactive virtual record playing. A controlled, auditory-only experiment showed participants could reliably distinguish between microbial environments based solely on the sonified representations, performing significantly above chance. This demonstrates that carefully designed sonification can effectively communicate complex scientific data, specifically nuanced spatial variations in microbial communities. This work contributes to microbiome sonification and auditory display, promoting public understanding and providing new tools for data exploration.
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2025-06
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Text
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Proceedings
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Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)