WABAD: A World Annotated Bird Acoustic Dataset for Passive Acoustic Monitoring
Authors: Pérez-Granados Cristian , Etxebarría Jon Morant , Darras Kevin Félix Arno , Gómez Oscar Humberto Marín , Mendoza Irene , Mohedano-Muñoz Miguel Ángel , Santamaría Eduardo , Bastianelli Giulia , Márquez-Rodríguez Alba , Budka Michał , Bota Gerard , Rubio José M. de la Peña , Morena Eladio L. García de la , Santa-Cruz: Manu , Nava Pablo de la , Fernández-Tizón Mario , Sánchez-Mateos Hugo , Barrero Adrián , Traba Juan , Osiejuk Tomasz S. , Hart Patrick J. , Navine A , Muñoz Andrés Felipe Montoya , de Araujo Carlos Barros , Rosa Gabriel Lima Medina , Torres Ingrid Maria Denóbile , Catalano Ana Luiza Camargo , Simões Cássio Rachid Meireles de Almeida , Llusia Diego , M.B Morales Manuel , Acebes Pablo , Medina Juan Antonio , Brown Nicholas , Astaras Christos , Karmiris Ilias , Navarrete Elizabeth , Cauchoix Maxime , Barbaro Luc , Funosas David , Arend Dominik , Müller Sandra , González-García Fernando , González-Romero Alberto , Mammides Christos , Pontikis Michaelangelo , Jacuzzi Giordano , Olden Julian D. , Bombaci Sara P. , Marcacci Gabriel , Jacot Alain , Zurano Juan Pablo , Gangenova Elena , Varela Diego , Sallo Facundo Di , Zurita Gustavo A. , Atemasov Andrey , Tremblay Junior A. , Lamarre Vincent , Hutschenreiter Anja , Monroy-Ojeda Alan , Díaz-Vallejo Mauricio , Chaparro-Herrera Sergio , Briers Robert A , Sousa-Lima Renata S. , Pinheiro Thiago , Silva Wigna Carla da , Calvente Alice , Molin Anamaria Dal , Antonelli Alexandre , Gogoleva Svetlana , Palko Igor , Trọng Hiếu Vũ , Duarte Marina Henriques Lage , Saturnino Natália dos Santos Falcão , Silva Samuel Rodrigues , Rainho Ana , Lopes Paula , Schuchmann Karl-L. , Marques Matinez I. , de Oliveira Ana S. , Littlewood Nick A , Tuanmu Mao-Ning , Cheng Yi-Ru , Chao Hsuan , Kepfer-Rojas Sebastian , Aguilera Andrea L. , Brotons Lluís , Feldman Mariano J. , Imbeau: Louis , Panwar Pooja , Weed Aaron S. , Dehwal Anant , Sebastián-González Esther 
Published: January 2025

Under the current global biodiversity crisis, there is a need for automated and non-invasive monitoring techniques that are able to gather large amounts of information cost-effectively at large scales. One such technique is passive acoustic monitoring, which is commonly coupled with automatic identification of animal species based on their sound. Automated sound analyses usually require the training of sound detection and identification algorithms. These algorithms are based on annotated acoustic datasets which mark the occurrence of sounds of particular species. However, compiling large annotated acoustic datasets is time consuming and requires experts, and therefore they normally cover a reduced spatial and taxonomic scale. This data paper presents WABAD, the World Annotated Bird Acoustic Dataset for passive acoustic monitoring. WABAD is designed to provide the public, the research community, and conservation managers with a novel and globally representative annotated acoustic dataset. This database includes 5,044 minutes of audio files annotated to species-level by local experts with the start and end time, and the upper and lower frequencies of each identified bird vocalisation in the recordings. The database has a wide taxonomic and spatial coverage, including information on 90,662 vocalisations from 1,147 bird species recorded at 70 recording sites in 27 countries and distributed across 13 biomes. WABAD can be used, for example, for developing and/or validating automatic species detection algorithms, answering ecological questions, such as assessing geographical variations on bird vocalisations, or comparing acoustic diversity indices with species-based diversity indices. The dataset is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International copyright.