A Bioacoustic Record of a Conservancy in the Mount Kenya Ecosystem

Simple SummaryWildlife conservation and management has become a very complex public policy issue in China as concerns about animal welfare and empathy for animals have emerged, especially in the younger generation. Science-based conservation policy and strategy that focus on sustainable management are perceived as less irrelevant today and can often be in conflict with emerging attitudes and values. Sustainable wildlife management adheres to the conservation concept of effective combination of species conservation and sustainable utilization, with an aim to establish a long-acting species conservation model that promotes all-round development of ecology, society, and economy, and has traditionally formed the basis of conservation management. This study designed a semi-structured questionnaire, which aimed to assess attitudes of Chinese college students towards sustainable wildlife management and wildlife conservation, and investigate the role of demographic and other characteristics on attitude. From October 2018 to April 2019, nine universities (including “Double First-Class” universities, first-tier universities, second-tier universities), and four three-year colleges in China were selected as survey sites, where face-to-face interviews were conducted among students. The results show that students broadly support the sustainable wildlife management but not in issues relating to “Animal Welfare and Rights” and “Trophy Hunting”. Students with lowest support for the theory and practice of sustainable wildlife management are vegetarians, freshmen, and those who have taken environmental protection electives in their educational program.Wildlife conservation and management has become a very complex public policy issue in China as concerns over on animal welfare and empathy for animals have grown. Science-based conservation strategies that are oriented toward sustainable wildlife management (SWM) are under threat as these new attitudes and values emerge and take hold. This study accesses the attitudes of college students towards SWM and wildlife conservation, and investigates demographic characteristics influencing their attitudes in China, a country that is traditionally associated with consumptive use of wildlife and SWM, but where new ideas about wildlife conservation are emerging. From October 2018 to April 2019, nine universities (including “Double First-Class” universities, first-tier universities, second-tier universities), and four three-year colleges in China were selected as survey locations, and face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1991 students. A total of 1977 questionnaires were recovered, of which 1739 were valid, with a completion rate of 88%. A Likert seven-point scale method was used to score students’ attitudes, and a classification and regression tree (CART) was used to analyze whether their attitudes were affected by their demographic characteristics. The results show that although students are broadly supportive of the theory of SWM, some are deeply antagonistic about on SWM on issues that arouse strong emotions such as “Animal Welfare and Rights” and “Trophy Hunting”. Demographic characteristics of students affect their degree of support for the SWM with support for SWM lower among vegetarians, freshmen, and students who have taken environmental protection electives. This research suggests that the theory of SWM requires to be refreshed and adapted to appeal to the younger generation of Chinese students, with SWM principles integrated into the environmental education programs of universities and three-year colleges. More attention should also be attached to media publicity by the government about wildlife conservation so as to enhance awareness of the need for SWM.

Conservation decisions for bird diversity in the Afrotropics are often based on ecological studies utilizing diurnal bird species likely owing to difficulties associated with sampling nocturnal birds. It is therefore important to compare the sampling effectiveness of some of the available techniques that can be used in nocturnal bird surveys to guide future long-term survey efforts. Thus, we compared the sampling effectiveness of point count, acoustic recorder and camera trap for estimating nocturnal bird species richness and also across habitat types. We surveyed 20 points that were spaced at least 500 m apart in November and December 2021 in the Amurum Forest Reserve and its surroundings in Jos-Nigeria. At each point, we used two camera traps, one at the ground and the other at 2.0 m. We also used one acoustic recorder as well as a 15-min point count during each survey at each point. We encountered 11 nocturnal bird species, primarily nightjars but also owls. While we did not encounter any species with the camera traps, all 11 species were recorded using the acoustic recorder. All species except for Ketupa lacteaus were recorded in point count. Eight species were recorded in the gallery, seven in rocky and nine in savannah. Species richness and estimation using the acoustic recorder and point count were similar across habitat types. We conclude that either point count or acoustic recorders are useful for nocturnal bird surveys in Afrotropical environments. However, the choice of methods should be based on the research questions as some questions may be better answered by a specific method or even a combination of both.

Introduction. Lost voice function compensation determines the personal and social life of laryngectomees. Automatic speech recognition and synthesis methods are widely used as apps for additional and alternative communication. One of the urgent tasks in clinical practice is voice restoration effectiveness evaluation. Aim. To evaluate the effectiveness of voice rehabilitation results in laryngectomized patients using the automatic assessment of speech intelligibility. Materials and methods. 3 groups of 30 laryngectomized patients depending on the method of voice rehabilitation (esophageal voice, tracheoesophageal voice, electrolarynx), and 14 patients after various surgical interventions on the larynx were included. All patients underwent pseudo-voice recording for further assessment of phrasal intelligibility using the automatic assessment software module, as well as by a trained and untrained listener. Results and discussion. Comparative analysis shows a minimum intelligibility level in automatic recognition, apparently due to semantic and contextual recognition even in untrained listener. Alaryngeal speech demonstrates worse recognition, compared to organ-preserving operations on the larynx, in untrained listeners and in automatic recognition. Experienced listeners demonstrate a consistently high level of recognition of all types of substitute speech. Conclusion. Objectification of the intelligibility assessment of substitute speech using automatic recognition systems allows leveling semantic and contextual recognition during assessment by both trained and untrained listeners. Automatic speech recognition and synthesys systems have application prospects in rehabilitation medicine, in particular, in patients with head and neck cancer.

Birds use sound as a communication mens. Each bird species has a unique and varied sound-based character based on differences in sound frequency. Information on the sound characteristics of each bird species could be used to identify bird species. Identification of bird species is one component of conservation activities in encouraging the development of technology through a bioacoustic approach. This study aims to determine the types of bird sounds in identifying bioacoustic-based species in lowland forest ecosystems in Alas Purwo National Park. Data was collected in April 2017 using a digital scraping device (Android Sony Experia mobile phone and microphone) installed at the sampling point for 3 days. Analysis of animal sounds using Raven Pro Software 1.5.0. The results showed that variations of bird sound types obtained amounted to 34 types of sound types with 26 species identified. This research shows that the bioacoustic approach can estimate the existence of a species and has the potential as a method of biomonitoring biodiversity in an ecosystem.

The human face facilitates identification in security and policing scenarios. In these settings, automatic face recognition systems have increased in prevalence and accuracy in recent years. As a result, the identification task, which once fell entirely to humans, is now a process performed by man and machine. Automatic face recognition systems provide image similarity comparisons and can create candidate lists to narrow down potential targets. There is increasing interest in the accuracy of these systems, and the role that algorithms can play in the identification effort. The design, operational usage, and effectiveness of these automatic systems, as well as the interaction of human and computer recognition are the topics of this chapter.

Looking for indicator bird species in the context of forest fragmentation and isolation in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

Metropolitan cities around the world are putting effort towards a common goal of smart and sustainable urban development as smart cities initiative. To realize smart transportation systems as part of smart cities, automatic recognition of vehicle license plates is essential for border checkpoint control, traffic and red-light violation, monitoring of vehicles entering and leaving critical infrastructures and government agencies. This paper presents an implementation of automatic license plate recognition system using vehicle license plates in Myanmar as a case study. The proposed approach can be used to train for recognition of country-specific vehicle license plates. Collecting more than 1200 actual license plate images, training and evaluating the performance, our implementation achieves 90% accuracy for recognizing characters of the license plates, and 100% accuracy for detecting total number of vehicle license plates in the videos. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first in Myanmar having a dataset of actual license plate images/videos and successfully implemented such an automatic recognition system.

Indicator species have been proposed to reveal common status of ecosystems and their biodiversity. In this thesis, forest bird species were studied based on territory and nest site mappings within a forest-dominated landscape in southern Finland. The general aims of the thesis was to find candidates of indicator bird species that would predict general variation in species richness and density of forest bird assemblages, to reveal more exactly species with indicator property at multiple spatial scales, and to study factors that affect occurrence and dynamics of indicator species in forest landscapes. The potential indicator species were screened by evaluating statistical models. The redbreasted flycatcher (Ficedula parva Bechst.), the pygmy owl (Glaucidium passerinum L.) and the three-toed woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus L.) were found to be the most suitable candidates of multiscale indicators of forest bird species richness. In general, models with small spatial scale and several indicator species were observed to better explain the total variation in species richness. The results show that a carefully selected set of bird indicator species may be useful and efficient method for evaluation of forest bird diversity. The densities of the above-mentioned three species were also higher in the surroundings of capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus L.) leks where also the overall species richness of forest birds was higher. The density of capercaillie also coincides with general wildlife richness. Capercaillie can thus be considered a good candidate for an umbrella species for wildlife. The occurrence of the three-toed woodpecker was influenced by spatial dynamics of the species and the quality of the landscape. Territory quality of three-toed woodpecker may, however, be substantially modified by species interactions and be mediated to its population development. The results suggest the presence of quality threshold values of forest environment, which may determine the occurrence of the three-toed woodpecker and similar species in forest landscapes.

Identifying indicator bird species for sustainable oil palm plantation certification

Automatic bird species recognition system using neural network based on spike

Introduction: The creation of protected natural areas within urban environments has played an essential role in providing small reservoirs of native vegetation and refuges for endemic species. Objective: To analyze, through ant communities, the influence of urbanization in a protected natural area (PNA) located in an urban zone. Methods: From April to July 2022, using bait traps and pitfall traps along 100 m transects, the presence of ant species was recorded in the El Refugio State Park Natural Area in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Alpha diversity was assessed using Hill numbers, while beta diversity was evaluated using the Jaccard index. Additionally, indicator species were identified through the indicator value (IndVal). Multiple correspondence analysis was conducted to associate the presence of species with environmental variables and vegetation types, and contingency tables were created to relate ant presence to vegetation cover size. Results: Species richness and diversity decreased in sites with low vegetation cover, such as in Tamaulipan thornscrub; moreover, secondary vegetation retained greater species richness. Indicator species were found in secondary vegetation and grassland areas, mainly composed of species that tolerate high temperatures and generalists such as Forelius mccooki and Tetramorium spinosum, while lowland jungle species were the only indicator species. The presence of these species is primarily associated with temperature, humidity, and vegetation cover. A significant relationship between the presence of ant species and vegetation cover size in El Refugio State Park was evident. Conclusion: The structure and composition of ant communities vary according to the type of vegetation structure, particularly in areas that have undergone greater anthropogenic damage. Therefore, the conservation of landscapes, as well as monitoring of these areas, should be considered in future research. Keywords: green areas; formicids; conservation; indicator species; community ecology.

Monitoring of forest biodiversity and habitats is an important part of forest conservation, but due to the impossible task of monitoring all species, indicator species are frequently used. However, reliance on an incorrect indicator of valuable habitat can reduce the efficiency of conservation efforts. Birds are often used as indicators as they are charismatic, relatively easy to survey, and because we often have knowledge of their habitat and resource requirements. In the Swedish government’s environmental quality goals, there are a number of bird species identified as being associated with ‘older’ and ‘high natural value’ forests. Here we evaluate the occurrence of four of these indicator species using data from 91 production forest stands and 10 forest reserves in southern Sweden. The bird species assessed are willow titPoecile montanus, coal titPeriparus ater, European crested titLophophanes cristatusand Eurasian treecreeperCerthia familiaris. For the production stands assessed, these indicator species exhibited no significant preferences regarding forest composition and structure, indicating a wider range of habitat associations than expected. These species frequently showed territorial behavior in forest stands <60 and even 40 years of age; much younger than the 120‐year threshold for ‘older forest’ as defined by governmental environmental goals. As almost 80% of the production stands ≥10 years old included at least one of the four indicator species, this raises questions regarding the suitability of these species as indictors of forests of high conservational value in southern Sweden. Notably, besides the four species assessed here, none of the additional indicator taxa identified by the government, were recorded in the 10 reserves. This outcome may reflect the difficulties involved in finding bird indicator species indicative of high natural values in this region. Our results highlight the importance of coupling bird surveys with quantified assessments of proximate vegetation cover.

This report is a general description of an automatic target recognition system developed at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory for the Department of Energy. A user`s manual is a separate volume, Automatic TLI Recognition System, User`s Guide, and a programmer`s manual is Automatic TLI Recognition System, Programmer`s Guide. This system was designed as an automatic target recognition system for fast screening of large amounts of multi-sensor image data, based on low-cost parallel processors. This system naturally incorporates image data fusion, and it gives uncertainty estimates. It is relatively low cost, compact, and transportable. The software is easily enhanced to expand the system`s capabilities, and the hardware is easily expandable to increase the system`s speed. In addition to its primary function as a trainable target recognition system, this is also a versatile, general-purpose tool for image manipulation and analysis, which can be either keyboard-driven or script-driven. This report includes descriptions of three variants of the computer hardware, a description of the mathematical basis if the training process, and a description with examples of the system capabilities.

The implementation of automatic speech recognition systems as a part of the sound interface of intelligent information management systems promotes an increase in the efficiency of human interaction with these systems. Lately, the research in the field of embedded automatic recognition systems is especially of a high interest. This article analyzes the prospects of the implementation of embedded automatic speech recognition systems based on high-performance RISC microcontrollers. The advantages have been substantiated of such an implementation in comparison with other solutions in this area. The characteristics of high performance microcontroller families have been compared. The possibility of implementing each stage of recognition tasks using microcontroller systems has been explored.

This study examined the edge effects on forest bird diversity in five man-made, five upper natural and 15 lower natural glades in the Mount Meru Game Reserve, Tanzania from September 2005 to November 2005. Bird species composition differed significantly between the three glade types. Mountain Greenbul and Common Bulbul were indicators of forest edge habitat for upper natural and man-made glades, respectively. Bird total abundance, species richness and species diversity differed significantly with distance into the forest for all glade types, and decreased significantly with distance from the edge to the forest interior for man-made glades only. For upper natural glades, bird total abundance correlated positively with plant species richness and percentage basal cover for forbs. Most bird species strongly selected man-made glades over upper and lower natural glades, and strongly avoided upper natural glades. Habitat guilds in man-made glades were associated with foraging. Edge effects for all three glade types influenced bird total abundance and bird species composition, richness and diversity in the forest. In summary, forest glades and their edges have high conservation value for edge bird species. Therefore, clearing of the forest edges for man-made glades should continue in order to maintain these habitats for conservation purposes. Key words: Edge effects, forest birds, forest edge, forest glades, indicator species.