Beyond the “Shiny New Hammer”: Data Analysis Tools to Make the Most of Acoustic Monitoring Studies

The use of acoustic monitoring as a tool has increased dramatically in the past two decades. Despite this, the outputs from this research are limited by the availability of analytical tools. The data produced by acoustic monitoring is very simple and as such requires extensive manipulation and processing during analysis. Once processed, data can yield a wide array of information about animal location, movement, residency, fate and more. The use of extensive arrays of acoustic receivers can yield estimates of activity space and home range. Here we will compare different approaches to the estimation of 2-dimensional kernels, as well as demonstrate how 2-dimensional kernels can be extended to 3-dimensions to improve our understanding of space use. Approaches to examining the residency of animals using acoustic monitoring at a variety of time scales will be described in the context of the evaluation of the efficacy of marine protected areas. The use of acoustic monitoring to examine the effects of environmental drivers on the movement of animals will also be examined using data from a riverine habitat. To harness the power of acoustic monitoring data users need to understand how the equipment works, what the data represent and be innovative in their approaches.