Bioacoustic approaches in biodiversity inventories.

Acoustic emissions of animals serve communicative purposes and most often contain species-specific and individual information exploitable to listeners, rendering bioacoustics predestined for biodiversity monitoring in visually inaccessible habitats. Recording bioacoustic signals allows reproducible identification and documentation of species’ occurrences, but it requires technical prerequisites and behavioural precautions that are summarized. The storing, visualizing and analysing of sound recordings is illustrated and major software tools are shortly outlined. Finally, different approaches to bioacoustic monitoring are described, tips for setting up an acoustic inventory are compiled and a key for procedural advancement and a checklist to successful recording are given.