Acoustic characterization of bats from Malta: setting a baseline for monitoring and conservation of bat populations

AbstractBioacoustic research has made several advancements in developing systems to record extensive acoustic data and classify bat echolocation calls to species level using automated classifiers. These systems are useful as echolocation calls give valuable information on bat behaviour and ecology and hence are widely used for research and conservation of bat populations. Despite the challenges associated with automated classifiers, due to the interspecific differences in call characteristics of bat species found in the Maltese Islands, the use of a quantitative and automated approach is investigated. The sound analysis pipeline involved the use of an algorithm to clean sound files from background noise and measure temporal and spectral parameters of bat echolocation calls. These parameters were then fed to a trained and validated artificial neural network using a bat call library built from reference bat calls from Malta. The automatic classifier achieved an overall correct classification rate of 98%. Th...