Buzzfindr: Automating the detection of feeding buzzes in bat echolocation recordings

Quantification of bat communities and habitat heavily rely on non-invasive acoustic bat surveys the scope of which has greatly amplified with advances in remote monitoring technologies. Despite the unprecedented amount of acoustic data being collected, analysis of these data is often limited to simple species classification which provides little information on habitat function. Feeding buzzes, the rapid sequences of echolocation pulses emitted by bats during the terminal phase of prey capture, have historically been used to evaluate foraging habitat quality. Automated identification of feeding buzzes in recordings could benefit conservation by helping identify critical foraging habitat. I tested if detection of feeding buzzes in recordings could be automated with bat recordings from Ontario, Canada. Data were obtained using three different recording devices. The signal detection method involved sequentially scanning narrow frequency bands with the "Bioacoustics" R package signal detection algorithm, and extracting temporal and signal strength parameters from detections. Buzzes were best characterized by the standard deviation of the time between consecutive pulses, the average pulse duration, and the average pulse signal-to-noise ratio. Classification accuracy was highest with artificial neural networks and random forest algorithms. I compared each model's receiver operating characteristic curves and random forest provided better control over the false-positive rate so it was retained as the final model. When tested on a new dataset, buzzfindr's overall accuracy was 93.4% (95% CI: 91.5%- 94.9%). Overall accuracy was not affected by recording device type or species frequency group. Automated detection of feeding buzzes will facilitate their integration in the analytical workflow of acoustic bat studies to improve inferences on habitat use and quality.