Testing the effectiveness of automated acoustic sensors for monitoring vocal activity of Marbled Murrelets Brachyramphus marmoratus

Marbled Murrelets Brachyramphus marmoratus nest at low density in cryptic, dispersed and often inaccessible locations, usually high in old-growth trees (Nelson 1997, Piatt et al. 2007). Flights to and from nests typically occur in dark pre-dawn or dusk hours. The secretive breeding behavior and cryptic nest sites of murrelets make it difficult to census local populations, study behavior and determine habitat use; however, this information is needed to monitor threatened populations and their nesting habitats and to set conservation priorities (McShane et al. 2004, Piatt et al. 2007, Miller et al. 2012). Logging of old-growth nesting habitat has been identified as a main factor in population declines, and consequently a major focus of recovery planning is identifying high-quality forest nesting habitat for protection (CMMRT 2003, Raphael 2006). Monitoring the occurrence and behavior of murrelets in forest stands can provide important information for managers attempting to identify, rank and map nesting habitat used by murrelets (Burger & Bahn 2004, Meyer et al. 2004, Stauffer et al. 2004, Bigger et al. 2006).

[1]  J. Savard,et al.  Activity patterns of Marbled Murrelets in old-growth forest in the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia , 1993 .

[2]  Efficacy of Audiovisual and Radar Surveys for Studying Marbled Murrelets in Inland Habitats , 2006 .

[3]  M. Collopy,et al.  ACTIVITY PATTERNS OF MARBLED MURRELETS IN DOUGLAS-FIR OLD-GROWTH FORESTS OF THE OREGON COAST RANGE , 2000 .

[4]  J. Piatt,et al.  Status Review of the Marbled Murrelet (Brachyramphus marmoratus) in Alaska and British Columbia , 2007 .

[5]  M. Raphael.  Conservation of the Marbled Murrelet under the Northwest Forest Plan , 2006, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[6]  V. Bahn,et al.  Inland habitat associations of Marbled Murrelets on southwest Vancouver Island, British Columbia , 2004 .

[7]  Paul Roe,et al.  Sampling environmental acoustic recordings to determine bird species richness. , 2013, Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America.

[8]  A. Burger.  Using radar to estimate populations and assess habitat associations of marbled murrelets , 2001 .

[9]  Howard B. Stauffer,et al.  RANKING HABITAT FOR MARBLED MURRELETS: NEW CONSERVATION APPROACH FOR SPECIES WITH UNCERTAIN DETECTION , 2004 .

[10]  B. A. Cooper,et al.  Comparisons of radar and audio-visual counts of marbled murrelets during inland forest surveys , 2002 .

[11]  C. Ralph,et al.  STAND-SCALE HABITAT ASSOCIATIONS ACROSS A LARGE GEOGRAPHIC REGION OF AN OLD-GROWTH SPECIALIST, THE MARBLED MURRELET , 2004 .

[12]  Donald A. Croll,et al.  A wireless acoustic sensor network for monitoring wildlife in remote locations , 2012 .

[13]  Using resampling to assess reliability of audio-visual survey strategies for marbled murrelets at inland forest sites , 2001 .

[14]  Richard D. Young,et al.  Recent Population Decline of the Marbled Murrelet in the Pacific Northwest , 2012 .

[15]  Abraham L Borker,et al.  Vocal Activity as a Low Cost and Scalable Index of Seabird Colony Size , 2014, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[16]  Steffen Oppel,et al.  Estimating population size of a nocturnal burrow-nesting seabird using acoustic monitoring and habitat mapping , 2014 .

[17]  J. Piatt,et al.  Ecology and conservation of the Marbled Murrelet in North America: An overview , 1995 .

[18]  George Holborn,et al.  Evaluation of an automated recording device for monitoring forest birds , 2012 .

[19]  Rachel T. Buxton,et al.  Measuring nocturnal seabird activity and status using acoustic recording devices: applications for island restoration , 2012 .