DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7956063
title: Passive acoustic monitoring applied to black-and-white ruffed lemurs (Varecia variegata) in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar

description: Data accompanying the paper: <strong>"An integrated passive acoustic monitoring and deep learning pipeline applied to black-and-white ruffed lemurs (\textit{Varecia variegata}) in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar"</strong> Fieldwork was conducted at Mangevo (21.3833S, 47.4667E), an isolated and undisturbed forest location within Ranomafana National Park (RNP), located in southeastern Madagascar, during the period of May to July 2019. To facilitate passive acoustic monitoring, we deployed a total of two SongMeter SM4 devices (manufactured by Wildlife Acoustics) and two Swift units (provided by the Cornell Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics). The placement of these recorders was strategically chosen within the central regions of known subgroups, ensuring a minimum distance of 300 meters between each device. The SongMeter devices operated at a sampling rate of 48 kHz, while the Swift units operated at 32 kHz, respectively, enabling comprehensive audio data collection throughout the study period. We provide the audio data (.wav) used to train and test our neural network classifier along with the corresponding labelled text files (.data). <strong>Files provided</strong> <strong>Test_Audio.zip </strong>-- contains (.wav) testing audio files <strong>Test_Annotations.zip </strong>-- contains (.svl) manually annotated testing files which can be read in using Sonic Visualiser or by parsing the XML file in Python or another programming language. Load in the audio file into Sonic Visualiser and then drag-and-drop the corresponding .svl file. <strong>Training_Audio_batch_x.zip -</strong>- several .zip files were created to simplify downloading. There are 10 batches, each is roughly 4GB. Each batch contains (.wav) training audio files <strong>Training_Annotations.zip</strong> -- contains (.svl) manually annotated training files which can be read in using Sonic Visualiser or by parsing the XML file in Python or another programming language. Load in the audio file into Sonic Visualiser and then drag-and-drop the corresponding .svl file. <strong>model_weights_tensorflow.hdf5 </strong>-- the Tensorflow model. Load the model using: model = tf.keras.models.load_model(model_filepath) note that the model expects a three channel input as explained in the research article.
description: We thank Centre ValBio research station and MICET for their extensive logistical support. We thank our local guide, Ezafy, and cook/camp lead, Tolotra. Ford, Noro, and the other Mangevo field teams were helpful and accommodating camp-mates, providing advice and on-the-ground support. CHB thanks the CUNY Graduate Center's Provost Office and Digital Initiatives program for their generous funding. ED is supported by a research chairship from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences South Africa. This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada, www.idrc.ca, and with financial support from the Government of Canada, provided through Global Affairs Canada (GAC), www.international.gc.ca.