The optimal listening period for an effective assessment of bird richness and composition: a case study of Neotropical forest

The use of autonomous recording units for the monitoring of birds has increased over the years. However, the time needed to listen to the recordings still remains a strong limitation, particularly for highly diverse communities. We aimed to optimize listening effort of trained observers by identifying the periods with the highest species detection rates over 720 1-min files (6 min/h). We detected 90 species within the 720 min. We managed to detect 90% (81) of the species by listening to the top 20% of highly informational minutes (a total of 150 min), a satisfactory result if the goal is to compare communities.