APPLYING BIOACOUSTIC TECHNIQUES TO URBAN ORNITHOLOGY STUDIES: GUIDELINES AND RE-COMMENDATIONS

Abstract

One of the main ways birds communicate, through the emission of sounds or vocalizations, can be affected by sounds produced by human activities in urban areas. These noises or disturbances interfere with bird communication, affecting mate identification, reproductive processes, territory defense, and even bird community richness and diversity. In this way, urban areas constitute complex sound environments for birds. Bioacoustics, through passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), is a growing tool with numerous advantages especially useful for urban ecology studies. PAM is a non-invasive and effective method for obtaining information autono-mously, continuously, simultaneously and under various environmental conditions. Despite this, it is still an un-der-exploited tool in Neotropical countries. We here provide a methodological description showing the potential of PAM in bird research, particularly for birds living in urban and/or peri-urban environments. To this end, we conducted a non-systematic review of the existing literature presenting basic notions of sound and its recording process, options of microphone and recorders associated with the PAM, sampling designs, analyzes programs, and acoustic indexes. We also present examples of our research on monitoring urban environments in Patagonia. We highlight the value of this study tool for long-term research, complex study sites, monitoring programs and conservation projects.