On behalf of my coauthors I would like to announce the following paper published in JASA earlier this month.
Passive acoustic monitoring of coastally associated Hawaiian spinner dolphins,
Stenella longirostris, ground-truthed through visual surveys
http://scitation.aip.org/content/asa/journal/jasa/140/1/10.1121/1.4955094Abstract: Effective decision making to protect coastally associated dolphins
relies on monitoring the presence of animals in areas that are critical
to their survival. Hawaiian spinner dolphins forage at night and rest
during the day in shallow bays. Due to their predictable presence, they
are targeted by dolphin-tourism. In this study, comparisons of presence
were made between passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) and vessel-based
visual surveys in Hawaiian spinner dolphin resting bays. DSG-Ocean
passive acoustic recording
devices were deployed in four bays along the Kona Coast of Hawai‘i Island between January 8, 2011 and August 30, 2012. The
devices sampled at 80 kHz, making 30-s recordings every four minutes. Overall, dolphins were acoustically
detected
on 37.1% to 89.6% of recording days depending on the bay. Vessel-based
visual surveys overlapped with the PAM surveys on 202 days across the
four bays. No significant differences were found between visual and
acoustic
detections suggesting
acoustic surveys can be used as a proxy for visual surveys. Given the
need to monitor dolphin presence across sites, PAM is the most suitable
and efficient tool for monitoring long-term presence/absence.
Concomitant photo-identification surveys are necessary to address
changes in abundance over time.
If you do not have access to JASA and/or the article please feel free to email me.