Neotropical forest soundscapes with call identifications for katydids

Insects are an integral part of terrestrial ecosystems, but while they are
ubiquitous, they can be difficult to census. Passive acoustic recording
can provide detailed information on the spatial and temporal distribution
of sound producing insects. We placed recording devices in the forest
canopy on Barro Colorado Island in Panamá and identified katydid calls in
recordings to assess what species were present, in which seasons they were
signaling, and how often they called. The focal recordings were collected
at a height of 24 meters in two replicate sites, sampled three times per
night across five months, spanning both wet and dry seasons. Katydid calls
were commonly detected in recordings, but the call repetition rates of
many species were quite low, consistent with findings from individual
focal recordings. The recordings contained 6,789 calls with visible pulse
structure. Of these, we identified 4,371 to species with the remainder
representing calls that could not be identified to species. The identified
calls corresponded to 24 species, with 15 of these species detected at
both replicate sites. Katydid calls were detected throughout the night.
Most species were detected at all three timepoints in the night, although
some species called more just after dusk and just before dawn. The
annotated dataset provided here serves as an archival sample of the
species diversity and number of calls present in the forest canopy of
Barro Colorado Island, Panama. These hand-annotated data will also be key
for evaluating automated approaches to detecting and classifying insect
calls. In changing forests and with potentially declining insect
populations, consistent approaches for insect sampling will be key for
generating interpretable and actionable data.