Research from Oregon State University and the US Forest Service has shown that artificial intelligence analysis of data collected by acoustic recording devices is a promising tool for monitoring marbled merlets and other cryptic, hard-to-study species. There is a new tool.
The endangered marbled murrelet is a popular Pacific Northwest seabird closely related to puffins and murres, but unlike these birds, murrelets raise their young up to 60 miles inland in mature and old-growth forests.
“There are very few species like this,” said co-author Matt Bates of the OSU College of Forestry. “And there is no other bird that feeds in the ocean and travels such long distances to nesting sites inland.” This behavior is extremely unusual, and it makes studying this bird really difficult.”
A research team led by Adam Duarte of the US Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station used data from acoustic recorders originally set at thousands of sites in federally managed forests in the Oregon Coast Range and Washington's Olympic Peninsula. Was hired to help monitor the Northern Spotted Owl population. .
The researchers developed a machine learning algorithm called a convolutional neural network based on recordings of murrelet calls.
The results, published in Ecological Indicators, were tested against known murrelet population data and determined to be more than 90 percent accurate, meaning the recorders and AI are able to provide an accurate assessment of what a specific species is. How many murrelets are calling in the area?
“Next, we're testing whether merlette vocalizations can actually predict reproduction and occupancy across species, but that's a few steps away,” Bates said.
The pigeon-sized marbled murrelet spends most of its time in coastal waters feeding on krill, other invertebrates and forage fish such as herring, anchovies, smelt and capelin. Murrelets can produce only one offspring per year, if nesting is successful, and their young require forage fish to grow and develop properly.
Birds usually lay an egg high in a tree on a horizontal limb at least 4 inches in diameter. Steller's jays, ravens and ravens are important predators of murrelet nests.
Along the West Coast, marble marls are regularly found from Santa Cruz, California to the Aleutian Islands. The species is listed as endangered under the US Endangered Species Act in Washington, Oregon, and California.
“The highest detection numbers in our study are typically where late-growth forest dominates, and are close to marine habitats,” Duarte said.
Late succession refers to mature and old-growth forests.
“Our results offer considerable promise for species distribution modeling and long-term population monitoring for rare species,” said Duarte, “nesting via telemetry, ground-based nest searches or traditional audio/visual techniques.” Monitoring it is much less laborious than searching for it.”
Matthew Veldi of the College of Forestry, Zachary Ruff of the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences, and Jonathan Valent, a former Oregon State postdoctoral researcher now with the US Geological Survey, along with Bates and Duarte, Damon Lesmeister and Joined the study with Juliana Jenkins. Forest Service.
Funding was provided by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service.
