Determining temporal sampling schemes for passive
acoustic studies in different tropical ecosystems

Pieretti, N; Duarte, MHL; Sous-Lima, RS; Rodrigues, M; Young, RJ; Farina, A

Abstract

Among different approaches to exploring and describing the ecological complexity of natural environments, soundscape analyses have recently
provided useful proxies for understanding and interpreting dynamic patterns and processes in a landscape. Nevertheless, the study of
soundscapes remains a new field with no internationally accepted protocols. This work provides the first guidelines for monitoring soundscapes
in three different tropical areas, specifically located in the Atlantic Forest, Rupestrian fields, and the Cerrado (Brazil). Each area was investigated
using three autonomous devices recording for six entire days during a period of 15 days in both the wet and dry seasons. The recordings were
processed via a specific acoustic index and successively subsampled in different ways to determine the degree of information loss when
reducing the number of minutes of recording used in the analyses. We describe for the first time the temporal and spectral soundscape features
of three tropical environments. We test diverse programming routines to describe the costs and the benefits of different sampling designs,
considering the pressing issue of storing and analyzing extensive data sets generated by passive acoustic monitoring. Schedule 5 (recording one
minute of every five) appeared to retain most of the information contained in the continuous recordings from all the study areas. Less dense
recording schedules produced a similar level of information only in specific portions of the day. Substantial sampling protocols such as those
presented here will be useful to researchers and wildlife managers, as they will reduce time- and resource-consuming analyses, whilst still
achieving reliable results.

Citation

acoustic studies in different tropical ecosystems. Tropical Conservation Science, 8(1), 215-234. https://doi.org/10.1177/194008291500800117

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 17, 2015
• Online Publication Date: Mar 1, 2015
• Publication Date: Mar 1, 2015
• Deposit Date: Apr 8, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Journal: Tropical Conservation Science
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 215-234
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/194008291500800117
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/194008291500800117
• Related Public URLs: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/trc
• Additional Information: Funders : FAPEMIG