iBats ID

A grey long-eared bat. (Hugh Clark/Bat Conservation Trust)

As a nocturnal species, bats are notoriously hard to spot, so acoustics have always played a major role in monitoring bat populations. However, distinguishing between different bat calls is very difficult and we have developed a new online classification tool which automatically classifies bat calls to species. The tool currently works for 34 European bat species and is the first standardised automatic bat identification tool that can be used across a continent.

Publication: Walters, C. L., Freeman, R., Collen, A., Dietz, C., Brock Fenton, M., Jones, G., Obrist, M. K., Puechmaille, S. J., Sattler, ., Siemers, B. M., Parsons, S., Jones, K. E. (2012), A continental-scale tool for acoustic identification of European bats. Journal of Applied Ecology, 49: 1064–1074. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2012.02182.x Online tool here

Media coverage: NYTimes BBCNews

 

Project lead institution:

About Vincent Miller

Vincent Miller has been playing an important role in the technology community for quite a long time already. He is one of the most active and visible members of this community. He is an academic with a strong online presence. He articles are debated over by the community as he raises many important questions in his work.

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