Maximizing Comparability Among Bat Acoustic Studies

One goal of bat acoustic monitoring during pre-construction studies at wind energy facilities is to provide some level of risk assessment for post-construction impacts to bats. To date, however, few studies have shown... [ view full abstract ]

One goal of bat acoustic monitoring during pre-construction studies at wind energy facilities is to provide some level of risk assessment for post-construction impacts to bats. To date, however, few studies have shown correlations between pre-construction bat activity and post-construction fatality. Several factors may contribute to this lack of a relationship. We address the influence of bat detector settings (e.g., trigger window and gain) on reported activity rates and how the lack of standardized settings and resultant differences in activity rates limit incorporation of data into meta analyses and reduce our ability to draw larger inferences. The increased diversity of bat detector systems currently available, and the more control users have to modify settings, emphasize the need for standardization. A more standardized approach in data collection and analyses could facilitate the inclusion of more data into meta analyses and provide an opportunity to draw real conclusions from the large amount of bat acoustic data currently collected across the United States and beyond. We present recommended settings for various detector systems, discuss the merits of reporting data that minimizes the influence of detector settings, and propose a bat acoustic monitoring working group to establish standards in data collection and data analysis.