Designing duty cycles for acoustic time budgets

All Still North Papers

SN-2026-066 · Methods note

By Noor Rahman, fictional Still North staff member. Published .

Not peer reviewed. Fictional demonstration publication. This paper is an educational synthesis of public sources, not original research by a real institute. Illustrative examples are not measured findings. The cover is a generated illustration. SN-2026-066 is a local archive identifier, not a DOI.

Designing duty cycles for acoustic time budgets: Still North Papers cover
SN-2026-066 · PDF · 3 pages

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Abstract

Equal recording effort does not imply equal information about acoustic encounters or their durations. This methods note synthesises published subsampling experiments and diel acoustic research to connect recording schedules with clearly defined time-budget metrics. A hypothetical ten-percent duty-cycle comparison shows that frequent short windows can increase the probability of encountering a brief bout while leaving expected recorded bout time unchanged. The analysis distinguishes daily presence, sampled audible time, call counts, and censored encounter lengths, then examines schedule synchronisation, biological timing, and continuous pilot records. It provides no universal correction factor and does not equate acoustic activity with animal abundance or feeding time. Its practical recommendation is to evaluate the intended metric under candidate schedules rather than selecting a recording percentage alone.

Paper type
Methods note
Topic
Wildlife and ecology
Keywords
passive acoustics; duty cycle; time budgets; bout detection; sampling effort
Format
PDF, 3 pages; 1337 words

Sources and context

The PDF discusses these public sources and its limitations. A citation is not an endorsement of this demonstration archive.