RBINS bat sound collection

Yves Laurent1, Thomas Vandenberghe1, Thomas Vandenberghe2

1 Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Rue Vautierstraat 29, 1000, Brussels, Belgium; 2 

Corresponding author(s): Yves Laurent (ylaurent@naturalsciences.be)Thomas Vandenberghe (tvandenberghe@naturalsciences.be)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Abstract

This dataset holds the bat occurrences and sounds recorded with bat detectors through various monitoring and research projects conducted by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Data has been gathered in various locations in the countryside and in the North Sea to monitor the impact of windmill parks on bat migration routes. The data is hosted on the DASA platform, a resource for acoustic recordings of (primarily) bats taken in Belgium. The sounds are gathered by various bat detectors, noted in samplingProtocol, both in passive deployments and transects.

Keywords: Occurrence
Bats
Acoustic monitoring
wav sound files, Observation

Project details

Project title: Digital Animal Sound Archive
Personnel: Thomas Vandenberghe
Funding: BELSPO BRAIN
Study area descriptions/descriptor: 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.

Data published through GBIF: https://ipt.naturalsciences.be/resource?r=be_rbins_bat_sounds_collection

Taxonomic coverage

Taxonomic ranks
Order: Chiroptera
Common names: Bats

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Belgium, Belgian Part of the North Sea
Coordinates: 50°10'4.8''N and 51°41'20.4''N Latitude; 2°45'28.8''E and 5°35'9.6''E Longitude 

Formation period: Since 2019-05-24

Methods

Method step description: 
- . 	Creation of the excel files by bat specialist
- . 	QC and feedback to bat specialist
- . 	Ingestion in the database
- . 	Extraction to DarwinCore
Study extent description: Various locations, as reported in the locality field.
Sampling description: The collection field states the project for which the data was gathered initially. Each project had different
Quality control description: 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.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive RBINS bat sound collection
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: https://ipt.naturalsciences.be/archive.do?r=be_rbins_bat_sounds_collection
Publication date of data: 2025-10-06
Language: English
Licences of use: Public Domain (CC0 1.0)

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2025-09-08
Hierarchy level: Dataset