Project description and objectives:
In spring 2024 we implemented a passive acoustic bird monitoring within the framework of the Biodiversity Monitoring South Tyrol which will be repeated in the next years.
Passive acoustic monitoring and automated identification are increasingly used in ecological research to assess bird diversity. It involves recorders capturing bird calls and an algorithm that determines the species based on the recording. However, considerable effort is required to obtain meaningful results. In particular, the species identification algorithm is prone to errors.
Our aim is to optimize bird identification by establishing species-specific confidence thresholds, which will improve the accuracy of the identification algorithm and reduce false positives in the results. Additionally, passive acoustic monitoring is compared with point count monitoring to assess similarities and differences between the two methods, and to optimize monitoring protocols. Finally, the new collected data will be integrated in our ecological models to improve their predictions.
Methods:
AudioMoth v.1.2.0 recorders are placed at the center of each BMS site, active at dawn and dusk throughout the breeding season (end of March – end of July) with 5-minute recordings every 10 minutes. Batteries are regularly changed and the data downloaded to avoid interruptions in the recordings. Recordings are then stored in a large server to be subsequently validated and processed. For analysis, we use the bird song recognition software BirdNet Analyzer 2.4 and Raven Pro 1.6.5 for batch processing. The resulting species list can be compared to the results of the point count survey, which follows the guidelines of the BMS.
Partner:
Università degli Studi di Milano (Mattia Brambilla), biodiversa+
Contact:
Contact persons for further information are Matteo Anderle Matteo.Anderle@eurac.edu and Jarek Scanferla Jarek.Scanferla@eurac.edu
