Automated acoustic detection of Geoffroy's spider monkey highlights tipping points of human disturbance

As more land is altered by human activity and more species become at risk of extinction, it is essential that we understand the requirements for conserving threatened species across human-modified landscapes. Owing to their rarity and often sparse distributions, threatened species can be difficult to study and efficient methods to sample them across wide temporal and spatial scales have been lacking. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is increasingly recognized as an efficient method for collecting data on vocal species; however, the development of automated species detectors required to analyse large amounts of acoustic data is not keeping pace. Here, we collected 35 805 h of acoustic data across 341 sites in a region over 1000 km(2) to show that PAM, together with a newly developed automated detector, is able to successfully detect the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi), allowing us to show that Geoffroy's spider monkey was absent below a threshold of 80% forest cover and within 1 km of primary paved roads and occurred equally in old growth and secondary forests. We discuss how this methodology circumvents many of the existing issues in traditional sampling methods and can be highly successful in the study of vocally rare or threatened species. Our results provide tools and knowledge for setting targets and developing conservation strategies for the protection of Geoffroy's spider monkey.

Automated summary

With the increased human activity and threatened species at risk of extinction, it is important to understand how to conserve them across human-modified landscapes. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) is an efficient method for collecting data on vocal species, but there is a lack of automated species detectors to analyze large amounts of acoustic data. In this study, we used PAM and a newly developed automated detector to successfully detect the endangered Geoffroy's spider monkey and found that they were absent below a certain forest cover threshold and near primary paved roads, and occurred equally in old growth and secondary forests.