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Processing stationary acoustic data in SonoBat 4

See below for detailed guidance on assigning automated species IDs to recordings, scrubbing noise files, attributing metadata to recordings, and exporting metadata in the NABat bulk upload template. 

Processing stationary acoustic data in SonoBat 4

Attribute Files:

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1. Open the SonoBat Data Wizard and select NABat Attributer from the drop-down menu in the top left of the window. Click the folder icon in the top right of the window and navigate to the folder containing the .wav files you intend to attribute (this should be a folder for a single deployment). Next, determine if you would like to Copy and Attribute to Output Folder or Rename and Attribute in place using the dropdown option. Specify an output directory in the Output Folder section where attributed files will be saved. The right panel of the application displays the GUANO metadata present in your selected acoustic files. This will be updated as NABat metadata fields are assigned in the Data Wizard.

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IMPORTANT NOTE: the NABat Metadata fields available in SonoBat 4 do not reflect the most up-to-date metadata fields required and/or accepted by NABat as of September 2024. Only fill out the “Location/Time (required)” fields in the NABat Metadata pop-up window as the other metadata drop-down fields are obsolete.

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2. Click the NABat Metadata button to access the NABat metadata pop-up window. For stationary acoustic data, the Mobile Transect option must be set to False.

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3. Once you have added only the NABat Location/Time (required) fields, click Finish

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4. Software Type and Species List are required fields that must be entered manually. To manually add a new metadata field, click on one of the yellow dropdown triangles and select add new…

 

  • In the pop-up menu, enter one of the NABat field names exactly as it appears here (include the NABat| as well).

  • Click the drop-down menu in the bottom left corner of the window and select Create advanced metadata field from the available options.

  • Input the value for that field and click Accept.

  • Repeat the above steps for all NABat metadata fields for which you have data. 
     

5. Select the Attribute Files button in the bottom center of the window.

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Scrub Noise Files:

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6. Click the folder icon in the top right corner of the Data Wizard window and navigate to the folder containing your .wav files.

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7. Click the drop-down menu in the top left and select Batch File Scrubber.

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8. Select medium from the filter options and ensure the appropriate frequency filter is selected.

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9. Click Scrub in the bottom left of the window.

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Assign Species IDs:

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10. Open SonoBat 4 western [or eastern] North America and select the regional classifier and subregion appropriate for your survey location (this selection corresponds to the Species List metadata field required for data submitted to NABat). Click the I understand button to access the applications primary user interface.

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11. Click the SonoBatch button in the lower left corner.

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12. Click the folder icon in the top center of the SonoBatch window and navigate to the folder containing the files you intend to process.

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13. Confirm that you have selected the classifier most appropriate for your location using the drop-down menus on the left side of the window.

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14. Ensure Append species codes to filenames? is NOT selected.

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15. Select autofilter in areas without low-frequency bat species and auto-low in areas with low-frequency bats present.

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16. Set acceptable call quality to 0.80.

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17. Set sqnc decision threshold to 0.90.

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18. Set max number of calls to consider to 16.

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19. Click Process in the bottom center of the window.

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Export Metadata into the NABat Bulk Upload Template:

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The following steps can be used to export metadata from all processed deployments simultaneously, resulting in a single CSV with metadata from numerous sites. Simply select the parent folder that contains all of your processed deployments and follow the steps outlined below. The presence of non .wav files in the folder will not interfere with this process. SonoBat will ignore non .wav files.

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NABat requests that users provide metadata for scrubbed NOISE files. However, SonoBat automatically ignores any folder labeled "Noise Files," "Deleted Files," or "Scrubbed Files." To ensure scrubbed files load in the SonoVet table, rename folders containing scrubbed files as "NOTBAT" before loading folder(s) into SonoVet.

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1. Open SonoBat 4 western [or eastern] North America, select the regional and subregional classifier appropriate for your survey location. Click the I understand button to access the applications primary user interface.

 

2. Click the SonoVet button in the lower left corner to access the Project Vetter pop-up window.

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3. Click the Add to Project button and navigate to the folder containing .wav files that have been processed and attributed in the above steps.

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4. Click the Settings tab on the top menu bar and then click the Load Layout button to load the NABat metadata form. Be sure to select the appropriate SonoBat form for your software version. SonoBat project forms are available for download here.

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​5. Click the Vetting Table tab from the top menu bar. Ensure all required fields have values and that all fields for which you have entered data are filled.​

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6. If everything is correct, click the Export tab from the top menu bar. Select a destination folder to save the metadata file and select Use current layout – and Output null as " " or Output null as an empty cell from the dropdown menu in the bottom center of the window. DO NOT select “NABat Summary” for export – this summary format does not reflect the NABat metadata updates. 

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7. Click Save to File.

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8. The resulting .txt file must be converted to a .csv file. To convert the file in Excel, open a new workbook, click the Data tab, Get DataFrom File, and From Text/CSV. NOTE: depending on your version of Excel, the process may vary slightly.

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9. In the pop-up window, navigate to the SonoBat text file and click Import. Select Tab as the Delimiter and click Load in the bottom right of the window. Your data will now open in an Excel spreadsheet. 

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10. In order for the NABat system to read your metadata, the column headers created by SonoBat must be replaced with the metadata field names from the NABat template. To do so:

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  • Select cell A1 of your spreadsheet and paste in the new column headers listed below.​

  • Click the Data tab in Excel. ​

  • Select the Text to Columns button. ​

  • In the dialogue box, select Delimited as the file type and click Next.

  • Select Comma as the Delimiters and click Finish. ​

  • The headers should now be distributed into the appropriate columns.​​

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GUANO Fields:

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| GRTS Cell Id, Location Name, Survey Start Time, Survey End Time, Detector, Detector Serial Number, Microphone, Microphone Serial Number, Microphone Placement, Contact, Comments, Unusual Occurrences, Event Low Temperature, Event High Temperature, Event Low Relative Humidity, Event High Relative Humidity, Event Low Weather Event, Event High Weather Event, Event Low Wind Speed, Event High Wind Speed, Event Low Cloud Cover, Event High Cloud Cover, Audio Recording Name, Audio Recording Time, Latitude, Longitude, Software Type, Auto ID, Manual Id, Species List​

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11. The specific software version must now be manually added. Highlight the Software Type column, and using the find/replace function, replace SonoBat with SonoBat 4.x, depending on your specific software version.​

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12. Click FileSave As, and select the folder where you intend to save the metadata spreadsheet. Give the file a unique and descriptive name and select CSV (Comma delimited) from the Save as type dropdown.​

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Formatting the NABat Template​:

 

NABat stationary acoustic metadata underwent updates in September 2024. Because updates to SonoBat 4 are no longer supported by the software manufacturer, the NABat Attributer no longer reflects the most up to date NABat metadata. Therefore, NABat provides a scripted solution to format data for upload. Follow the instructions below to format data.

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13. Download the below script. Open R studio and copy and paste the script into the upper left window. Adapt the code to your computer path and file names. Click Run until you reach the end of the code. A new CSV file should now be written and ready for upload. 

If you require assistance, please contact a member of the NABat Technical Outreach Team, or book a user support appointment at your convenience.

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2018 by Bat Conservation International in partnership with the NABat Program

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