Data and code from: Bioacoustic monitoring reveals patterns of landscape use by migrating birds at a Great Lakes barrier crossing

Understanding how highly mobile animals use landscapes at broad geographic
scales remains a major challenge in ecology. Traditional monitoring
approaches often lack the spatial and temporal resolution to monitor how
migratory species use heterogeneous landscapes, contend with movement
barriers, and interact with urban and developed landscapes. Here, we use a
passive acoustic monitoring network to characterize landscape use of
migrating songbirds in the Keweenaw Peninsula, a major barrier crossing
point along the south shore of Lake Superior. Using nearly 3 million
acoustic detections of migrants from 18 sites spanning 328 km2, we
demonstrate that landscape use is shaped strongly by local geography and
wind conditions during reoriented movements associated with barrier
crossing. Generally, more songbirds used the peninsula during wind
conditions favorable for migration. Following winds unfavorable for
crossing in spring, birds concentrated in coastal and ridge landscapes
oriented along an east-west axis. Geographic gradients and coastline
orientation both played important additional roles in shaping migrants’
landscape use. Together, our results illustrate the complex role of large
water barriers in shaping landscape use in highly mobile animals. More
broadly, our findings demonstrate the value of acoustic monitoring as a
novel technique for studying migratory animals’ landscape use. This
approach offers a powerful, scalable tool that can be deployed across
complex landscapes and inform conservation priorities of hard-to-monitor
species.