Rapid extraction of ecologically meaningful information from large-scale acoustic recordings

Acoustic recordings have the potential to address a suite of important conservation questions, from assessing phenology shifts due to climate change, to examining the impact of anthropogenic noise on wildlife, to monitoring biodiversity at enormous spatio-temporal scales. However, consistent methods are required to extract meaningful information from these large datasets. Here we apply a method of calibrating recordings to standardize acoustic data collected at over 50 unique sites in a diversity of habitats across the continental U.S. using a variety of recording units and parameters. The calibration method results in a coarser data resolution, decreasing storage space and computation time of further analysis. We then apply recently developed acoustic indices to evaluate biodiversity in our recordings. A review of existing acoustic indices and degree of correlation with bioacoustic activity, species richness, functional diversity, landscape attributes, and anthropogenic influence guided our decisions abo...