Contributions of environmental conditions and sound characteristics to differences in perceptibility: Recommendations for passive acoustic monitoring
Open accessAbstract
Passive acoustic monitoring is increasingly used in ecological research to study a wide variety of taxa; however, properly accounting for perceptibility, a component of detection probability, has been challenging because sound attenuation is influenced by numerous variables in the surrounding environment and the rate of sound attenuation is not typically quantified. We used sound playback experiments to investigate the effect of several environmental variables including vegetation type and weather on perceptibility of a variety of sounds and species. We also investigated species-specific variables such as sound frequency, syllable rate, and bandwidth. We quantified the amount of bias in perceptibility resulting from species sound characteristics and vegetation type and estimated perceptibility and the area surveyed for different combinations of species and habitat type. We found that distance was the strongest predictor of perceptibility, but that vegetation type significantly influenced perceptibility, particularly when comparing open versus closed vegetation classes. Sound frequency and bandwidth of species were also important predictors of perceptibility. We found that ignoring variation in perceptibility due to excess sound attenuation from vegetation could bias area surveyed during acoustic surveys by up to 400% (mean = 167.4%). We conclude that other than distance, perceptibility is influenced most by species-specific vocalization traits and by the habitat these vocalizations transmit through. We provide recommendations for incorporating these findings into future research to account for varying perceptibility and improve the accuracy of bird monitoring and research.
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Environmental conditions-vegetation structure, wind, humidity, and rainfall-influence sound transmission and detection distance, potentially introducing spatial and temporal biases across large monitoring networks.
“Environmental conditions further shape what sensors record: vegetation structure, wind, humidity, and rainfall influence sound transmission and detection distance, potentially introducing spatial and temporal biases across large monitoring networks”
From Listening forward: emerging roles of bioacoustics in ecology, evolution, and conservation (2026) · cites this paper as Yip et al. 2026
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Martin, L. D., Nomenjanahary, E. S., Razafimanantsoa, H., Volampeno, S., Richardson, A., Magrath, R. D., & Behie, A. M. (2026) · American Journal of Primatology · doi:10.1002/ajp.70134 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Listening forward: emerging roles of bioacoustics in ecology, evolution, and conservation
Zsebők, S. (2026) · Biologia Futura · doi:10.1007/s42977-026-00322-5
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- Authors
- Yip, D. A., Knight, E. C., & Bayne, E. M.
- Affiliations
- Environment and Climate Change Canada (CA)
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Knight, Elly C
- Venue
- Ornithological Applications
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2025-09-19
- Volume
- 128
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-12
- ISSN
- 0010-5422 (ISSN-L)
- 2732-4621
- OpenAlex
- W4414378093
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 3.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Ornithological Applications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute
- Alberta Conservation Association
- Northern Scientific Training Program (NSTP), Ualberta North
- Joint Oilsands Monitoring Program
- Ecological Monitoring Committee for the Lower Athabasca
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology › Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Avian ecology and behavior
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Keywords
- passive acoustic monitoring, perceptibility, acoustic attenuation, detection probability, vegetation types, sound frequency, syllable rate, distance dependence, bird vocalizations, acoustic surveys
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