DOI: 10.5061/dryad.214qd
title: Data from: Potential for coupling the monitoring of bush-crickets with established large-scale acoustic monitoring of bats

description: 1. Monitoring biodiversity over large spatial and temporal scales is
 crucial for assessing the impact of global changes and environmental
 mitigation measures. However, large-scale monitoring of invertebrates
 remains poorly developed despite the importance of these organisms in
 ecosystem functioning. Exciting possibilities applicable to professional
 and citizen science are offered by new recording techniques and methods of
 semi-automated species recognition based on sound detection. 2. Static
 broad-spectrum detectors deployed to record throughout whole nights have
 been recommended for standardised acoustic monitoring of bats, but they
 have the potential to also collect acoustic data for other species groups.
 Large-scale deployment of such systems is only viable when combined with
 robust automated species identification algorithms. Here we examine the
 potential of such a system for detecting, identifying and monitoring
 bush-crickets (Orthoptera of the family Tettigoniidae). We use incidental
 sound recordings generated by an extensive citizen science bat survey and
 recordings from intensive site surveys to test a semi-automated step-wise
 method with a classifier for assigning species identities. We assess
 species’ diel activity patterns to make recommendations for survey timing
 and interpretation of existing nocturnal datasets and consider the
 feasibility of determining site occupancy. 3. Of six species of
 bush-crickets, the species classifier achieved over 85% accuracy for
 three, speckled bush-cricket, dark bush-cricket and Roesel’s bush-cricket.
 It should be possible to automatically scan recordings for these species
 with minimal manual validation. Further refinement of the classifier is
 required for the three remaining species, in particular for the
 acoustically similar short-winged conehead and long-winged conehead. Diel
 activity patterns are species specific and it may be necessary to adjust
 the hours over which the detectors record to increase detection of key
 species, but this must be weighed against the costs in terms of increased
 memory and battery use and equipment security during daytime. 4. We
 conclude that with logistical support and centralised semi-automated
 species identification it is now possible for the public to contribute to
 large-scale acoustic monitoring of Orthoptera whilst recording bats.
 Further innovation of sound classifier algorithms is needed and would be
 aided by improved reference sound libraries from multiple locations
 spanning species’ ranges.
description: Extensive Norfolk-scale
 bush-cricket dataExtensive Norfolk-scale
 data collected during the evening and night through the Norfolk Bat Survey
 (www.batsurvey.org) for Orthoptera between 2013-2015. Rows relate to the
 species present at the individual recording (*.wav)
 level.Norfolk wide
 data.csvIntensive site level
 dataIntensive site-level
 data collected over the day and night for Orthoptera in 2015. Rows relate
 to the species present at the individual recording (*.wav)
 level.