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2018 Recipients

RARE MARSH BIRD BREEDING SURVEY


2018, 4th Quarter:
DAVID LAWLOR FAIRFAX COUNTY PARK AUTHORITY, HUNTLEY MEADOWS PARK, VIRGINIA

Huntley Meadows Park (HMP) is an internationally recognised nature and tourism site and is designated as a premier Fairfax County Park Authority property. Within the 1550 acre park is a 50 acre managed wetland that is the focus of a $3 million, multi-year restoration project, headed David Lawlor, Natural Resources MHP.

Starting this spring, David and his staff will deploy Song Meter SM4 wildlife recorders around the wetland to conduct a survey species presence and inventory effort. Specifically, the team will be listening for six notoriously shy and secretive breeding marsh birds – the rare king rail, Virginia rail, American bittern, Least bittern, common gallinule and pied-billed grebe. The vocalisation data will be analysed using Wildlife Acoustics' Kaleidoscope Pro 5 analysis software with acoustic Cluster Analysis.

By collecting and analyzing vocalisation data in the wetland, David intends to document the presence and use of the wetlands by the rare marsh birds, determine their amount of time spent in the wetland during breeding season and correlate the results with water level analysis and vegetation types. The compiled data will guide and support more informed future wetland management plans.

David's results will be put to many uses. His work will be given to the 2021 Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas. Data will also be integrated into the Virginia Department of Natural Heritage database. Mr. Lawlor's findings will be part of the park's education programs, showcasing rare wetland breeding bird status.

FROM MISCONCEPTIONS TO INVESTIGATION: TRAINING FUTURE BAT CONSERVATIONISTS


2018, 4th Quarter:
LUIS E. VARGAS-CASTRO FOUNDATION OF THE DISTANCE STATE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND PROMOTION OF DISTANCE EDUCATION (FUNDEPREDI), COSTA RICA

Bats are key contributors to healthy ecosystems. They play critical roles as seed dispersers, pollinators and highly efficient insect pest consumers. Their activities provide economic benefits as well, saving billions of dollars in crops subject to insect damage and reducing pesticide use. Yet, bats are a special conservation concern as about a third of the world's species are threatened (vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered) or data deficient.

In Costa Rica, misconceptions and myths surround bats and are detrimental to bat populations. Mr. Vargas-Castro and collaborators will recruit 36 students from six Santa Cruz high schools, in Guanacaste, to teach them about bat conservation. The students will be equipped with state-of-the-art Echo Meter Touch 2 bat detectors and Kaleidoscope Pro 5 analysis software with bat auto-ID to capture, quickly organise and analyse the vast amount of bat echolocation call data.

Luis explains, the project has both biological and social purposes. Using the Echo Meter Touch, his group will examine spatial and seasonal patterns for the most common species of bats. Also, he and his students will create an acoustic library of bat echolocation calls specific to Guanacaste, that could later be used to conduct further conservation research focusing on habitat quality aspects and current status of species populations in the area.

The social purpose is just as important. The project will help to educate rural communities about the important roles bats play in ecosystem health, and will provide students with cutting-edge technology to record research data. Each participant will be enabled to teach other people about the importance of bats to our society and the benefits of conserving them and their habitat. The team will share the ongoing results with participating high schools, universities and eco-lodges. Project findings will also be shared via scientific publications.

BATS IN TEA: ACOUSTIC IDENTIFICATION OF BATS IN PLANTATION AGRICULTURE LANDSCAPE AND THEIR CONSERVATION MONITORING


2018, 3rd Quarter:
THARAKA KUSUMINDA UNIVERSITY OF RUHANA, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURAL BIOLOGY

Tea is the second most popular beverage in the world, behind water. Sri Lanka is the world's fourth largest tea producer – and bats play an important role in tea production.

"Bats are the principal natural predators, playing a significant role in regulating nocturnal insect pests," explains Tharaka Kusuminda. "Just as important, they are also effective bio-indicators of biodiversity and environmental change." However, there is little research on bat diversity in tea plantations in specific and little understanding of the effects of agricultural intensification on Sri Lankan bat populations, in general.

Mr. Kusuminda's team will launch the first large scale bat study in Sri Lanka using passive ultrasonic recorders. Covering fourteen tea plantations, his work will showcase the importance of bioacoustics recording methodologies. The collected and analysed data will expand an existing Asian bat call library and establish a second, long-term acoustic study which will examine the effects of anthropogenic pressure on species distribution and abundance in tea plantations. The projects results will ultimately be used for finding ways to make plantation lands more bat friendly in order benefit from the bats' free ecosystem services.

Using the Echo Meter Touch 2 PRO handheld bat detector|recorder|analyser, the researchers will identify suitable plantation recording sites with potential flight paths. The sites will then be equipped with Song Meter SM4BAT FS ultrasonic detectors to record bat echolocations in the areas over many weeks. The analysis work will be completed with Wildlife Acoustics' Kaleidoscope Pro 5 software.

Kusuminda's efforts will also support the University of Ruhana academic capacity building and guide interested undergraduate and graduate students in field research. Finally, the findings will also be shared in international peer-reviewed journals and community outreach efforts.

THE FLYING FAUNA OF A MONTANE WETLAND


2018, 3rd Quarter:
PROFESSOR ALIZA LE ROUX UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE – QWAQWA CAMPUS

High altitude wetlands in Africa are under threat from human activities. While mountains provide most of Africa's fresh water and montane wetlands provide habitat for many endemic species, almost nothing is known of the fauna that reside in the area. A 2018 National Biodiversity Assessment of South Africa suggests that documentation of biodiversity of montane wetlands must start immediately as human encroachment is quickly reducing the size of wetland areas.

Golden Gate Highland National Park (GGHNP) is the only National Park in South Africa that protects high-altitude grasslands and is an area considered vital to bird conservation. Within this park is an unmonitored wetland that may host some of the rarest bird and bat species in South Africa and Professor Aliza le Roux suspects that, "the isolated wetland may host a larger number of unique species in comparison to more accessible wetlands elsewhere."

Professor le Roux's project is the first in South Africa to monitor montane biodiversity using a soundscape approach. Equipped with Song Meter SM4 wildlife recorders and the Echo Meter Touch 2 handheld detector|recorder|analyser, le Roux's team plans to record and highlight the faunal diversity (both avian and chiropteran) of what is considered undervalued wetland. The many hours of recordings will be quickly organised and analysed using Wildlife Acoustics' Kaleidoscope Pro 5 software with Cluster analysis. The acoustic data will be compared with information collected via camera traps deployed at the sites. Aliza says the camera traps visually confirm variation in species indices, but, "I expect a significantly richer data set from the Song Meters and Echo Meter Touch bat detectors."

Aliza's results will shared with GGNHP management the local district municipality, traditional leaders in the area and the Department of Environmental Affairs with the long-term strategy of improving ecotourism in one of the poorest regions of South Africa.

SURVEYS FOR ENDANGERED NEWELL'S SHEARWATERS AND VULNERABLE HAWAI'IAN PETRELS ON THE ISLAND OF O'AHU


2018, 3rd Quarter:
PROFESSOR ALIZA LE ROUX UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE – QWAQWA CAMPUS

Hawaii's only endemic seabirds, the Newell's Shearwater and Hawai'ian Petrel, are nest burrowers, have no natural defenses against predators such as rats and feral cats, and as a result, are threatened and endangered. In the past twenty years alone, their populations have declined by 94% and 78%, respectively.

Dr. Young's plan is to search between three and five sites on the island of O'ahu, for the presence of Newell's Shearwater and the Hawai'ian Petrel and to determine whether birds detected in previous surveys are prospecting or breeding on the island. She will deploy several Song Meter SM4 wildlife recorders at sites where birds had been detected. The sites will be visited monthly and the data will be downloaded and quickly analysed using Kaleidoscope Pro 5 software with Acoustic Cluster analysis. She and her team will combine the acoustic data with visual and ground search efforts to locate possible burrows.

The data will be presented to land managers so that conservation and management decisions can be made in a timely fashion. If birds are found nesting in the areas, intensive management plans, monitoring and predator control will be established to protect the breeding birds.

AGROFORESTRY ECOSYSTEMS FOR COMMUNITIES AND NATURE


2018, 2nd Quarter:
TARA CAHILL, COMMUNITY CLOUD FOREST CONSERVATION

The central highlands of Guatemala are stricken with a woeful combination of challenges ranging from extreme poverty, high infant and maternal mortality, and chronic malnutrition, high rates of illiteracy and resulting excessive rates of deforestation for agricultural land conversion. Deforestation is attributed to agricultural incursions by small holder farmers into forests. According to Tara Cahill, agroforestry; agriculture incorporating the cultivation and conservation of trees, can help families live better and could be a socio-environmental solution for the region. But Linda wondered whether agroforestry can enhance the environmental health already degraded or deforested landscape and can it reduce agricultural incursions into existing forests.

Tara and the Community Cloud Forest Conservation will set about monitoring agroecosystems using Song Meter acoustic recorders to collect vocalisations and Kaleidoscope Pro software to analyse the data.

Song Meters will be deployed across agroforestry plots to sample bioacoustic activity. Duplicate parcels will be selected for high crop diversity and low crop diversity to enable comparisons of wildlife habitat use, measured in terms of vocalisations, between the two agricultural practices. The data will be collected year round with special attention given to identifiable avian and amphibian vocalisations.

Kaleidoscope Pro will be used to conduct a cluster analysis of vocalisations and those clusters will be turned into species classifiers with a special emphasis on avian and amphibian taxa. These data will analysed to determine species presence and absence, species richness, and species vocalisation frequencies. Comparisons between agroforestry and monoculture parcels will be conducted.

Research results will be used to guide agroforestry approaches in the region, allowing for science-based decision making and to build trust among land holders and agroforestry practitioners.

URBAN BAT PROJECT


2018, 2nd Quarter:
MORGAN HUGHES, BIRMINGHAM AND BLACK COUNTRY BAT GROUP

The central highlands of Guatemala are stricken with a woeful combination of challenges ranging from extreme poverty, high infant and maternal mortality, and chronic malnutrition, high rates of illiteracy and resulting excessive rates of deforestation for agricultural land conversion. Deforestation is attributed to agricultural incursions by small holder farmers into forests. According to Tara Cahill, agroforestry; agriculture incorporating the cultivation and conservation of trees, can help families live better and could be a socio-environmental solution for the region. But Linda wondered whether agroforestry can enhance the environmental health already degraded or deforested landscape and can it reduce agricultural incursions into existing forests.

Tara and the Community Cloud Forest Conservation will set about monitoring agroecosystems using Song Meter acoustic recorders to collect vocalisations and Kaleidoscope Pro software to analyse the data.

Song Meters will be deployed across agroforestry plots to sample bioacoustic activity. Duplicate parcels will be selected for high crop diversity and low crop diversity to enable comparisons of wildlife habitat use, measured in terms of vocalisations, between the two agricultural practices. The data will be collected year round with special attention given to identifiable avian and amphibian vocalisations.

Kaleidoscope Pro will be used to conduct a cluster analysis of vocalisations and those clusters will be turned into species classifiers with a special emphasis on avian and amphibian taxa. These data will analysed to determine species presence and absence, species richness, and species vocalisation frequencies. Comparisons between agroforestry and monoculture parcels will be conducted.

Research results will be used to guide agroforestry approaches in the region, allowing for science-based decision making and to build trust among land holders and agroforestry practitioners.

SEASONAL STUDY OF ARIZONA IMPORTANT BIRD AREAS


2018, 2nd Quarter:
JENNIE MACFARLAND, TUCSON AUDUBON SOCIETY

The Tucson Audubon Society has conducted extensive survey work on behalf of the Arizona Important Bird Areas program. There are 48 designated IBAs state-wide with the majority being in southeast Arizona, a well-known hotspot of bird diversity.

For years, the Arizona IBA program has relied on over 100 volunteers to conduct different types of surveys to gather bird data vital to the larger effort. This has worked well for both inventorying and monitoring tasks. As the program has grown in both scope and complexity of scientific inquiry, more questions have arisen about target species and refined timing that require data capture methodology that is either more advanced than our citizen science observational studies can provide, or requires more capacity in survey effort than is reasonable.

In 2017, Jennie and her team used a fleet of Song Meter SM4 acoustic recorders and SM3BAT ultrasonic recorders, owned by the Coronado National Forest, to record bird vocalisation and bat echolocation call data on a joint project; that's where they discovered the value of bioacoustics research.

This upcoming season, TAS will employ the use of Kaleidoscope Pro, it's Cluster Analysis and bat auto-ID features to organise and analyse the 2017 data captured by Song Meters. She and her team plan to examine species diversity and abundance of migratory birds, bird and bat diversity and presence, and wintering use by target bird species at specific IBA sites. Just as important, the results will show that Important Bird Areas are vital to not only birds but other species, such as bats.

The findings will be shared with the Arizona Game and Fish Department and bat conservation partner organisations for continued execution and refinement of land management programs and the expansion of community outreach efforts and citizen science work.

COMBATTING "NATURE DEAFNESS" WITH SINGING INSECTS


2018, 2nd Quarter:
DR. ALAN HARVEY, GEORGIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY

Georgia Southern University's Dr. Alan Harvey explains that field biology traditionally relies on visual identification skills, but auditory skills are also critical in observing wildlife and its habitats. These skills are not easily acquired; "plant blindness" may be a well-known phenomenon in budding biologists, but students actually have a much easier time learning to recognise plants than to identify even relatively distinctive calls or songs.

Dr. Harvey set out to create an ear training project for his students. Although early efforts focused on birds and anurans (frogs and toads), he suspects that singing insects (such as crickets, katydids, and cicadas) are better candidates for addressing "nature deafness." Diverse and abundant in south Georgia, their calls are distinctive and yet less complex than most bird songs. Also, insect calls occupy a higher register than most anurans calls, which are often difficult to distinguish from anthropogenic sounds in semi-urban settings.

Alan will deploy several Song Meter SM4 acoustic recorders in a variety of insect habitat areas across multiple seasons on the Georgia Southern University Statesboro campus. The call data will be organised and analysed using Kaleidoscope Pro software. The professor and his team will use the audio files to help students identify the insects by ear, as well as create a means to introduce students to the process of conducting scientific research. They will develop a comprehensive profile of the singing insects on campus, which can help inform a development plan that protects campus biodiversity.

BURROW BANTER: SOCIAL VOCALIZATIONS IN GOPHER TORTOISES (GOPHERUS POLYPHEMUS)


2018, 1st Quarter:
DR. KIMBERLY ANDREWS UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA, ODUM SCHOOL OF ECOLOGY

Gopher tortoises are unusually talented socializers and the benefactors for a wide variety of wildlife within their ecosystem. Their burrows serve as refuge for over 360 commensal species. Unfortunately, the habitat in which they're a keystone species is under threat. In short, gopher tortoises are being forced out of their homes. While relocation of tortoises has proven to be effective, the shrinking quality of habitats and sprawling human development has led wildlife managers to turn to augmenting resident tortoise populations with relocated populations.

Researcher Kimberly Andrews and her team will monitor a group of twenty resident and twenty relocated tortoises for a one year period, starting in May.

The forty subjects are currently equipped with GPS data loggers and filmed at burrows using wildlife cameras as part of on-going research on this tortoise population. Since there is support that tortoises may use vocalisations for attracting mates, establishing social structures and influencing group dynamics, Song Meter SM4 acoustic recorders with cabled SMM-A2 microphones will be deployed at several burrows during the twelve month period. The Song Meter SM4 will capture both at burrow and inter-burrow vocalisations among the hybrid colony. Telemetry, video, and acoustic data will be combined to create a profile of the social foundation of these remarkable creatures.

Kimberly hopes to build upon prior research, expand the general knowledge of gopher tortoise vocalisations and confirm the use of the vocalisations before, during and after the mating season.

The recordings will be sorted and analysed using Wildlife Acoustics' Kaleidoscope Pro software with acoustic Cluster Analysis. Kimberly will cross-analyse vocal recordings and time-stamped videos from the cameras to understand the physical cues of vocalisations and the behaviour and/or interactions related to them.

ACOUSTIC ACTIVITY AND CONSERVATION OF THE ENDANGERED HEATH BUSH-CRICKET GAMPSOCLEIS GLABRA (ORTHOPETERA, TETTIGONIOIDEA) ON XEROTHERMIC HABITATS IN SOUTHEASTERN POLAND


2018, 1st Quarter:
DR. EMILIA GRZĘDZICKA FOUNDATION FOR SILESIA PARK

Grasslands are the world's most endangered terrestrial ecosystem. Pressure from global processes, climate change, invasive species, land-use change and urbanisation are diminishing this habitat at an alarming rate. Grasslands, especially xerothermic habitats, are hotspots for land species of insects. They are known for a rich diversity of rare and endemic species of insects. Despite this unique and important environment, there is very little research carried out in grasslands in general and almost none attributed to the Eurasian grasslands. The lack of knowledge may imperil the order of insects belonging to Orthoptera – grasshoppers, locusts and crickets - some of the most sensitive indicators of habitat quality.

Many insects in the family Tettigonioidea, and in particular the Heath bush-cricket (Gampsocleis glabra) is threatened with extinction over the whole of Europe. In Poland, its population is down to few hundred individuals living in parts of the southeast.

Dr. Emilia Grzędzicka and her colleagues will set about to determine the presence of heath bush-crickets in xerothermic habitats, estimate the population with other Tettigonioidea and establish conservation protocols.

Tettigonioidea exhibits the greatest diversity of song structures. Stridulation, the insects' act of producing sound by rubbing together certain body parts, is useful for species classification and checking species abundances.

With the deployment of the Song Meter SM4 acoustic recorder in distressed xerothermic habitats, Dr. Grzędzicka will record the variation in song frequency as explained by the stresses of environment and increasing competition of individuals and species. She will also examine whether differences in songs among Heath bush-crickets leads to better transmission of songs in areas of stress. Finally, the team will also study whether the songs are modified to mitigate masking caused by the noise of urban environments.

The data will be analysed with Wildlife Acoustics' Kaleidoscope Pro software with acoustic Cluster Analysis. The results will be used in conservation plans for the locations studies, including but not limited to plans of mowing, grazing and detecting habitat threats. It is Dr. Grzędzicka's goal that the findings may result in international cooperation to protect both species and the grassland habitats throughout Eurasia.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Faunatech acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.