Effectiveness of acoustic indices as indicators of vertebrate biodiversity

Title
Effectiveness of acoustic indices as indicators of vertebrate biodiversity
Publication Date
2023-03
Author(s)
Allen-Ankins, Slade
McKnight, Donald T
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0188-3290
Email: dbower3@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:dbower3
Nordberg, Eric J
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1333-622X
Email: enordber@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:enordber
Hoefer, Sebastian
Roe, Paul
Watson, David M
McDonald, Paul G
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9541-3304
Email: pmcdon21@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:pmcdon21
Fuller, Richard A
Schwarzkopf, Lin
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Place of publication
Netherlands
DOI
10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.109937
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/55946
Abstract

Effective monitoring tools are key for tracking biodiversity loss and informing management intervention strategies. Passive acoustic monitoring promises to provide a cheap and effective way to monitor biodiversity across large spatial and temporal scales, however, extracting useful information from long-duration audio recordings still proves challenging. Recently, a range of acoustic indices have been developed, which capture different aspects of the soundscape, and may provide a way to estimate traditional biodiversity measures. Here we investigated the relationship between 13 acoustic indices obtained from passive acoustic monitoring and biodiversity estimates of various vertebrate taxonomic groupings obtained from manual surveys at six sites spanning over 20 degrees of latitude along the Australian east coast. We found a number of individual acoustic indices that correlated well with species richness, Shannon's diversity index, and total individual count estimates obtained from traditional survey methods. Correlations were typically greater for avian and total vertebrate biodiversity than for anuran and non-avian vertebrate biodiversity. Acoustic indices also correlated better with species richness and total individual count than with Shannon's diversity index. Random forest models incorporating multiple acoustic indices provided more accurate predictions than single indices alone. Out of the acoustic indices tested, cluster count, mid-frequency cover and spectral density contributed the greatest predictive ability to models. Our results suggest that models incorporating multiple acoustic indices could be a useful tool for monitoring certain vertebrate groups. Further work is required to understand how site-specific variables can be incorporated into models to improve predictive capabilities and how to improve the monitoring of taxa besides avians, particularly anurans.

Link
Citation
Ecological Indicators, v.147, p. 1-10
ISSN
1872-7034
1470-160X
Start page
1
End page
10
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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