Increasing popularity in passive acoustic monitoring and the ease with which researchers can accumulate large quantities of acoustic data has resulted in challenges for audio recording storage, archiving, and management. Reductions in file size can be achieved by lowering sample rate and compressing to different formats; however, how these processes affect audio data quality, and the resulting interpretation of wildlife data is not well understood. We investigated the effect of sampling rate and lossy compression of audio recordings to MP3 from their native WAV format on the performance of four commonly applied avian bioacoustic applications: community listening, distance estimation, automated recognition, and acoustic indices. Compression to MP3 decreased the number of detections, including a reduction in total abundance of individuals when transcribing audio files for community listening and lower precision and recall for automated recognisers. Sampling rate reduction introduced systematic bias to acoustic indices and had an influence on precision and recall for recognisers as well. We recommend against the use of MP3 compression to reduce file volume and suggest other lossless forms of audio compression where an exact copy of the original recording can be recovered.
Related Resources
Quantification of Lichen Cover and Biomass Using Field Data, Airborne Laser Scanning and High Spatial Resolution Optical Data—A Case Study from a Canadian Boreal Pine Forest
Resource Date:
2020
Organization
Large Stocks of Peatland Carbon and Nitrogen are Vulnerable to Permafrost Thaw
Resource Date:
August
2020
Organization
Increasing Contributions of Peatlands to Boreal Evapotranspiration in a Warming Climate
Resource Date:
June
2020
Organization
Prioritizing Zones for Caribou Habitat Restoration in the Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance Area V3.0
Resource Date:
January
2020
Foestland-Peatland Hygrologic Connectivity in Water-Limited Environment: Hydraulic Gradients Often Oppose Topography
Resource Date:
February
2020
Organization
Was this helpful?
|