Eastern Black Rail detection using semi-automated analysis of long-duration acoustic recordings

Elizabeth Znidersic,Christine Hand,Michael W Towsey,David M Watson

doi:10.5751/ace-01773-160109

Abstract

Znidersic, E., M. W. Towsey, C. Hand and D. M. Watson. 2021. Eastern Black Rail detection using semi-automated analysis of long-duration acoustic recordings. Avian Conservation and Ecology 16(1):9. https://doi.org/10.5751/ACE-01773-160109

Highlights

Detecting presence and inferring absence are critical in the monitoring and management of species
We investigated the efficiency of passive acoustic monitoring as a survey tool for the cryptic and poorly understood Eastern Black Rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) analyzing data from two sites collected at the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, South Carolina, USA
We demonstrate how Eastern Black Rail calls are discernible in Longduration false-color (LDFC) spectrograms, and we supplement this approach with an automated call recognizer

Summary

Introduction

Detecting presence and inferring absence are critical in the monitoring and management of species. Because species vary in detectability between sites or seasons, and are frequently present but not detected, conventional monitoring methods may provide misleading information about occurrence patterns, constraining efforts to manage populations. As no population estimate is free from bias, some methodologies adjust for the detection probability (Lieury et al 2017). There are two approaches to maximize comparability of samples with differing detection probabilities: (1) to statistically adjust estimates of site occupancy using species detection probabilities (ideally, collected contemporaneously), and (2) to determine the minimum sampling effort required to adequately represent the communities (de Solla et al 2005; Pellet and Schmidt 2005). Failure to detect a species in an occupied habitat patch is a common sampling problem, when the population is small, the individuals are difficult to detect, or sampling effort is inadequate (Gu and Swihart 2003)

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