Acoustic monitoring reveals a diverse forest owl community, illustrating its potential for basic and applied ecology.

Wood, Connor M.; Gutiérrez, Ralph J.; Peery, M. Zachariah

Here, we report a species-rich owl community as revealed by passively recorded audio data, and describe how this type of bioacoustic data can greatly facilitate the systematic study of entire owl communities without conventional vocal-lure surveys that may alter owl behavior and vocalization patterns (Crozier et al. [3]). The ongoing expansion of the barred owl ( I S. varia i ) into the western United States has raised the prospect of severe impacts to spotted owls, as well as the disruption of forest owl assemblages and entire forest ecosystems (Gutiérrez et al. [5], Holm et al. [6]). In addition to barred and spotted owls (Fig. a; Audio S1), we detected great horned owls ( I Bubo virginianus i ; Fig. b), western screech owls ( I Megascops kennicottii i ; Fig. c, d), flammulated owls ( I Psiloscops flammeolus i ; Fig. c), northern saw-whet owls ( I Aegolius acadicus i ; Fig. d), northern pygmy owls ( I Glaucidium gnoma i ; Fig. e), long-eared owls ( I Asio otus i ; Fig. f), and barn owls (Fig. g).

SIERRA Nevada (Calif. & Nev.); APPLIED ecology; COMMUNITY forests; COEXISTENCE of species; BARN owl; BIOINDICATORS; ANIMAL ecology

Ecology, 2019, Vol 100, Issue 9, pN.PAG

0012-9658

Academic Journal

10.1002/ecy.2764