EDP Baixo Sabor: Bat Feeding Habitats [acoustic sampling] - Ecological Monitoring (PME) and Compensatory Measures (PMC) Programs: Reservoir Filling and Operation Phase (2015-2020)

Data Records

The data in this sampling event resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 526 records.

1 extension data tables also exist. An extension record supplies extra information about a core record. The number of records in each extension data table is illustrated below.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Cabral J A, Barros P, Faria S, Duro V, Braz L, Vale-Gonçalves H, Carvalho D, Travassos P, Gomes C, Múrias T (2022): EDP Baixo Sabor: Bat Feeding Habitats [acoustic sampling] - Ecological Monitoring (PME) and Compensatory Measures (PMC) Programs: Reservoir Filling and Operation Phase (2015-2020). v1.0. EDP - Energias de Portugal. Dataset/Samplingevent. http://ipt.gbif.pt/ipt/resource?r=edp_sabor_quiropteros_acustica_2015-2020&v=1.0

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is EDP. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 3571d905-e285-4092-b77e-3dc59a5ddf5e.  EDP publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Portugal.

Keywords

Bats; occurrence; acoustic sampling; reproduction; feeding habitats

Contacts

Geographic Coverage

Data were collected in an area of 62,500 ha around the lower Sabor river valley affected by the Sabor Dams (impact area), and in an additional area of 30,000 ha not directly affected by the dams (control area), in the municipalities of Torre de Moncorvo, Alfândega da Fé, Mogadouro, Macedo de Cavaleiros, Vimioso and Bragança.

Taxonomic Coverage

The taxonomic coverage of this dataset spans 1 phylum, 1 class, 1 order, 4 families, 4 genera and 12 species identified.

Temporal Coverage

Project Data

The dataset contains records of bats (Chiroptera) collected in potential feeding habitats along the lower valley of River Sabor, in the scope of the Ecological Monitoring (PME) and Mitigation/Compensation Measures (PMC) Programs of the Baixo Sabor Hydroelectric Dams, promoted by EDP – Energias de Portugal, S.A. Sampling was carried out between June 2015 and August 2020 in selected sampling points, in the framework of the regular monitoring of feeding habitats for Chiroptera and as part of the monitoring program of Compensatory Measures (MC5.7). The occurrence of the target taxa was documented through 1,544 observation events. In total, 12 taxa were identified at the species level. The “species complexes” could potentially add 6 species to this list. The most common species (>100 records) identified were Pipistrellus pipistrellus (332 presence records), Pipistrellus kuhlii (276) and Tadarida teniotis (181). More than 30 records could not be attributed to any particular species, genus or "species complex", and were thus identified only to the Order taxonomic level.

The personnel involved in the project:

Sampling Methods

Sampling was designed to cover the dominant habitats of the study area, normally used by foraging bats. A total of 70 sampling points (10 impact and 30 controls, for the PME and 30 survey points for the PMC) was surveyed. The impact points were selected among those surveyed in the previous phases, and the subset of the points already established under the monitoring program of the compensatory measures MC1, MC2 and MC3 were also used as control points for bat activity. Each sampling site was visited once per month during the main bat activity period (June-August). In each month, one third of the control points (10 points) were covered, along with the impact points. Sampling was carried under favourable weather conditions, including temperature above 10º and absence of strong winds and rainfall. Acoustic sampling started at sunset and ended 2-3 hours later. Each site was sampled for 15 minutes. In all sites, the air temperature, relative humidity and wind velocity (m/second) were recorded, independently of the confirmed presence of bats. The detection of specimens in flight was made with a bat detector (Pettersson Elektronik, D240X model), with a frequency range of 10-120 kHz. The detector was connected to an automatic digital recorder (model Sony ICD-PX312) which saved the recordings in a “Wave” format, at a frequency of 44 kHz and at an expanded mode of 10x, making them audible to the human ears while, at the same time, preserving the original acoustic characteristics. The analysis of the acoustic records was performed using the sound analysis program BatSound Pro (Pettersson Elektronik AB). This program generates graphs (oscillogram, sonogram and power spectra) using the various sound variables that allow the identification of species or complexes of species detected. The exact identification of the bat species by sound analysis is not always possible, due to problems in detectability and/or identifiability. Whenever it was not possible to perform the identification to the species level, all the compatible species within these phonic groups (or “species complexes”) were considered as with possible occurrence.

Method step description:

1. To be completed

Additional Metadata