Assessment of cue counting for estimating bird density using passive acoustic monitoring: recommendations for estimating a reliable cue rate

Avian Conservation and Ecology

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Cristian Pérez-Granados¹  Adrián Barrero¹  Juan Traba¹  Daniel Bustillo-de la Rosa¹  Margarita Reverter¹  Julia Gómez-Catasús¹ 

[1] Terrestrial Ecology Group ,(TEG-UAM), Department of Ecology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid;Ecology Department/IMEM "Ramón Margalef", Universidad de Alicante;Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Cambio Global ,(CIBC-UAM), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

关键词: autonomous recording unit;    Chersophilus duponti;    population estimates;    vocal activity;    wildlife monitoring;    xeno-canto;   

DOI  :  10.5751/ACE-01801-160111

学科分类：口腔科学

来源: Resilience Alliance Publications

【 摘 要 】

Cue counting is a method developed for estimating vocally active wildlife density by dividing the density of cues (number of cues per unit area surveyed per unit time) by the average cue rate (ACR) at which individuals vocalize. It has been used successfully to estimate whale density using passive acoustic monitoring, but its efficacy has had limited testing in birds. We tested whether cue counting can be used to infer bird abundance using autonomous recording units and estimated the minimum effort required to obtain a reliable cue rate at individual and population levels. We recorded Dupont's Lark (Chersophilus duponti) vocalizations at 31 sites where traditional field censuses were also performed. We estimated the ACR using three methodologies: directional recordings, recordings from an online database of bird sounds (xeno-canto), and behavioral field studies. The ACRs estimated using directional recordings and behavioral field studies were similar, and bird numbers were over and underestimated by 0.8 and 10%, respectively (74–77% of the sampling sites were well estimated). However, the ACR estimated using xeno-canto recordings was much higher than those estimated using the other two methods, and bird numbers were underestimated by 41%. We also performed a cost-effectiveness assessment of the number of individuals and recording durations needed to optimize the estimation of a reliable ACR. We found that ACR estimates were more efficient if long (25 min) recordings were used when < 4 males were recorded, whereas 5-min recordings were more efficient for ≥ 20 males. We conclude that cue counting can be useful to infer bird density around recorders but requires an accurate measure of the ACR. Further research should evaluate the effectiveness of passive cue counting on a large number of species and under different circumstances.

【 授权许可】

CC BY