GTM publishes a paper in Applied Sciences about BatCall identification

The article has been drawn from a collaboration with the department of biodiversity, ecology and evolution of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  It is focused on the location and identification of the calls of two different bat species, Pipistrellus pipistrellus and Pipistrellus pygmaeus, which have a high presence on the Iberian peninsula. Bats are particularly sensitive to human impacts, such as slow population growth rates and temperature-sensitive hibernation behaviour. Survey and monitoring of bats is therefore not only important for assessing how bats are faring in response to a range of threats but may also enable an understanding of the changing state of biodiversity in general.

The two studied cryptic species are difficult to identify by their morphological features, but are more easily identified by their echolocation calls. The article is focused on both the audio data processing for the creation of a data set and the implementation of an automatic classifier for predicting the specific species.

Bertran, M.; Alsina-Pagès, R.M.; Tena, E. Pipistrellus pipistrellus and Pipistrellus pygmaeus in the Iberian Peninsula: An Annotated Segmented Dataset and a Proof of Concept of a Classifier in a Real Environment. Appl. Sci. 2019, 9, 3467.