Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 23,358 records.
1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.
- Occurrence (core)
- Multimedia
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Downloads
Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: ac4f02e9-ce6a-4132-892a-b478bc79ed14. Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by Belgian Biodiversity Platform.
Keywords
Occurrence Bats Acoustic monitoring wav sound files; Observation
Contacts
Who created the resource:
Who can answer questions about the resource:
Who filled in the metadata:
Who else was associated with the resource:
Geographic Coverage
Belgium, Belgian Part of the North Sea
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [50.168, 2.758], North East [51.689, 5.586] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
No Description available
| Order | Chiroptera (Bats) |
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Temporal Coverage
| Formation Period | Since 2019-05-24 |
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Project Data
A wide variety of animals produce acoustic signals or calls, that are in many cases species-specific. The use of these animal sounds in biological and ecological studies is widespread as they can be used to study species distribution, phenology, ecology and behaviour of organisms that are often visually elusive (e.g. marine mammals, bats). This results in extensive data sets (petabytes!) that are scattered in many different locations (e.g. scientific institutes, universities, voluntary researchers). A critical aspect of being able to learn from such large and varied acoustic data sets is providing consistent and transparent access that can enable the integration of various analysis efforts. The overall objective of the Digital Animal Sound Archive project (DASA) is therefore to set-up a robust database structure and design, and a user interface enabling us to collect and archive biological acoustic data and accompanying metadata. The DASA database will allow querying sound data based on time, location, or other desired attributes (to be identified during the end-user engagement process), to serve multiple goals like (1) a digital archive, (2) add to the collections hosted by RBINS, (3) to serve as a reference collection of species-specific sounds, (4) to offer a validated dataset for the development of automated identification software tools (e.g. for bats), and (5) a dataset for new ecological studies on the distribution and migration of species, and habitat preference. Combining individual datasets in an overarching database will lend more power to the ability to interpret patterns in the data. The need for such a bio-acoustic archive and interface has been expressed by many Belgian researchers, both professionals and volunteers from different fields of research. In most cases, their data is stored on a personal computer and might get lost through calamities or when these researchers halt their activities. We will reach out to these researchers by offering a set-up that guarantees a long-term safeguard for their data. As such, this will enhance collaboration, primarily at a national level but also with links to similar international initiatives. The general database development should be fit for purpose for all bio-acoustic data, but within this project it will be set-up for sound recordings of bats, as a proof of concept. Later, this database structure can then be used for sound recordings of other taxa (e.g. marine mammals). The project partnership consists of three partners: the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), a Federal Scientific Institute and Natuurpunt and Natagora, two NGOs involved in nature conservation. Aside from the project partners, a dedicated stakeholder engagement is required to assure a maximum incorporation of external views on the DASA project flow and data products. Therefore, a very close collaboration between the project consortium and the follow-up committee is foreseen throughout the project, which will provide input for every step of the development. This will hence guarantee a mutual understanding of project expectations and outcomes (i.c. database platform and user interface) that are usable and meaningful to a broad range of end users. The follow-up committee is composed of representatives of public authorities, universities, environmental NGOs, as well as consultancies. The main valorisation of the project is the development of (1) a database platform to store bio-acoustic data for the longer term and (2) a user interface to share / query / upload / download data. The target groups of these products are professional researchers as well as citizen-scientists/naturalists and consultancy agencies. By involving many different organisations in the follow-up committee, we will get a good overview of the needs and questions researchers have on storing and sharing acoustic data, from a several differing perspectives. As such, the resulting valorisation products will meet the needs of the end-users. The DASA project will result in a user-friendly tool to interactively upload, share, explore and use bio-acoustic data and survey metadata. The data will be searchable by metadata and visualised in a map viewer. This will strongly enhance many varying purposes for the data, ranging from scientific research, conservation studies, policy support and environmental impact studies.
| Title | Digital Animal Sound Archive |
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| Funding | BELSPO BRAIN |
| Study Area Description | Belgium and Belgian Part of the North Sea |
| Design Description | The main goal of DASA was to centralize the storage of existing and future bat sounds and occurrences. No data was gathered for the purpose of the project. |
The personnel involved in the project:
Sampling Methods
The collection field states the project for which the data was gathered initially. Each project had different
| Study Extent | Various locations, as reported in the locality field. |
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| Quality Control | All data was ingested from various excel files, based on a single metadata template. A single ingestion contained occurrences from different projects. A software package was built to perform the QC. This took into account: Detections: Validates latitude/longitude: both must be present or both null. Checks for duplicate detection rows (unique combination of deployment, filename, date, time). Validates detection attributes (type, value, format). Validates duration, pulses, date/time formats. Validates detection date within deployment range. Validates determination fields: if determination is present, determiner must be present. Validates software/person determination against known agents. Validates species codes/names against database. Ensures required coordinates for transect deployments. Ensures correct handling of fixed PAM deployments. Deployments: Validates deployment start/end dates. Checks for valid carrier and feature of interest. Validates effort text and deployment UUID. Ensures deployment ID uniqueness. General: Validates basic fields Checks for required values and correct formats. |
Method step description:
- Creation of the excel files by bat specialist
- QC and feedback to bat specialist
- Ingestion in the database
- Extraction to DarwinCore
Additional Metadata
| Alternative Identifiers | https://ipt.naturalsciences.be/resource?r=be_rbins_bat_sounds_collection |
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