Sampling flying bats with thermal and near-infrared imaging and ultrasound recording: hardware and workflow for bat point counts [version 1; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

Bat communities can usually only be comprehensively monitored by combining ultrasound recording and trapping techniques. Here, we propose bat point counts, a novel, single method to sample all flying bats. We designed a sampling rig that combines a thermal scope to detect flying bats and their fligh...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:F1000 research 2021, Vol.10, p.189
Hauptverfasser: Darras, Kevin, Yusti, Ellena, Knorr, Andreas, Huang, Joe Chun-Chia, Kartono, Agus Priyono, ., Ilham
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Bat communities can usually only be comprehensively monitored by combining ultrasound recording and trapping techniques. Here, we propose bat point counts, a novel, single method to sample all flying bats. We designed a sampling rig that combines a thermal scope to detect flying bats and their flight patterns, an ultrasound recorder to identify echolocating bat calls, and a near-infrared camera and LED illuminator to photograph bat morphology. We evaluated the usefulness of the flight pattern information, echolocation call recordings, and near-infrared photographs produced by our sampling rig to determine a workflow to process these heterogenous data types. We present a conservative workflow to enable taxonomic discrimination and identification of bat detections. Our sampling rig and workflow allowed us to detect both echolocating and non-echolocating bats and we could assign 84% of the detections to a guild. Subsequent identification can be carried out with established methods such as identification keys and call libraries, based on the visible morphological features and echolocation calls. Currently, a higher near-infrared picture quality is required to resolve more detailed diagnostic morphology, but there is considerable potential to extract more information with higher-intensity illumination. This is the first proof-of-concept for bat point counts, a method that can passively sample all flying bats in their natural environment.
ISSN:2046-1402
2046-1402
DOI:10.12688/f1000research.51195.1