Sampling event

Acoustic monitoring data of avian species inside and outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident

Latest version published by National Institute of Genetics, ROIS on 16 May 2022 National Institute of Genetics, ROIS
Publication date:
16 May 2022
License:
CC-BY 4.0

Download the latest version of this resource data as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A) or the resource metadata as EML or RTF:

Data as a DwC-A file download 2,071 records in English (998 KB) - Update frequency: annually
Metadata as an EML file download in English (19 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (18 KB)

Description

Large-scale land abandonment and reconstruction activity has altered the ecosystem structure in the evacuation area for the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident in 2011. Despite social concerns about changes in the avian assemblages that occurred after the accident, publicly accessible data are quite limited. We engaged in acoustic monitoring of birds using digital voice recorders from 2014 in and around the Fukushima evacuation zone. All monitoring sites were located within schoolyards (including those that had been converted to community centers) to examine the bird assemblages in the urban and rural landscapes that were heavily altered by land abandonment due to the nuclear plant accident. A digital voice recorder was installed at each monitoring site during May–July, and we recorded 20 minutes a day using timer-recording mode. We divided the audio data into 1-minute segments and identified species occurred in sampled segments by experts. These data represent the presence-absence records from 52 sites monitored in 2014, 57 sites monitored in 2015, 54 sites monitored in 2016, 57 sites monitored in 2017, 56 sites monitored in 2018, 52 sites monitored in 2019 and 50 sites monitored in 2020. We identified the species for 7,222 segments in total and 68 species occurred in 2014, 8,017 segments in total and 64 species occurred in 2015, 5,289 segments in total and 58 species occurred in 2016, 4,092 segments in total and 60 species occurred in 2017, 4,200 segments in total and 65 species occurred in 2018, 4,000 segments in total and 59 species occurred in 2019 and 3,900 segments in total and 56 species occurred in 2020. We are continuing to monitor and intend to update the dataset with new observations hereafter. Our dataset will help people to recognize the status and dynamics of avian assemblage inside the evacuation zone, and will contribute to promote open science in avian ecological studies.

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 2,071 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.

Event (core)
2071
Occurrence 
119726

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:

Fukasawa K., Mishima Y., Yoshioka A., Kumada N., Totsu K.(2017) Acoustic monitoring data of avian species inside and outside the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant accident. Ecological Research, 32(6), 769. doi:10.1007/s11284-017-1491-y

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Institute of Genetics, ROIS. 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: 6fe80778-1b03-4f2c-a822-e62a998f321b.  National Institute of Genetics, ROIS publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Japan.

Keywords

Samplingevent; Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station; Agricultural landscape; Satoyama; depopulation; terrestrial bird; Japan; Samplingevent

Contacts

NIES Fukushima Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring Team
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Researcher
National Institute for Environmental Studies
16-2 Onogawa
305-8506 Tsukuba
Ibaraki
JP
Biodiversity Division
  • Point Of Contact
National Institute for Environmental Studies
Keita Fukasawa
  • Author
Researcher
National Institute for Environmental Studies
16-2 Onogawa
305-8506 Tsukuba
Ibaraki
JP
+8129-850-2676
Yoshio Mishima
  • Author
Junior Research Associate
National Institute for Environmental Studies
16-2 Onogawa
305-8506 Tsukuba
Ibaraki
JP
Akira Yoshioka
  • Author
Researcher
National Institute for Environmental Studies
10-2 Fukasaku
963-7700 Miharu
Fukushima
JP
Nao Kumada
  • Author
Research Assistant
National Institute for Environmental Studies
16-2 Onogawa
305-8506 Tsukuba
Ibaraki
JP
Kumiko Totsu
  • Author
Specialist (Database engineer)
National Institute for Environmental Studies
16-2 Onogawa
305-8506 Tsukuba
Ibaraki
JP
+8129-850-2894

Geographic Coverage

Fukushima, Japan

Bounding Coordinates South West [36.996, 140.537], North East [37.801, 141]

Taxonomic Coverage

No Description available

Class Aves

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2014-05-22 / 2020-06-20

Sampling Methods

A digital voice recorder (DS-850, Olympus, Tokyo, Japan) was installed at each monitoring site during May–July in each year. The recorders were adjusted to timer-recording mode and recorded for 10 min before and after sunrise (total 20 min) every day until the batteries were depleted. The recorders were fixed to tripod stands at a height of about 0.9 m. The recorded data were split into 1-min segments in MP3 (124 kbps) format, which was treated as the minimum sample unit. We identified species of birds from acoustic data. Bioacoustics signals is a promised source of information for avian species identification (Lopes et al. 2011), and acoustic monitoring can produce similar result as traditional on-site survey methods in comparative ecological studies (Haselmayer & Quinn 2000; Hobson et al. 2002; Klingbeil & Willig 2015). Because the number of segments was very large, we chose a subset of segments evenly throughout the sampling period (8.08 days/site and 17.2 segments/day/site in 2014, 7.89 days/site and 17.8 segments/day/site in 2015, 5.74 days/site and 17.1 segments/day/site in 2016, 4.28 days/site and 16.8 segments/day/site in 2017, 3.75 days/site and 20 segments/day/site in 2018, 3.85 days/site and 20 segments/day/site in 2019 and 3.9 days/site and 20 segments/day/site in 2020, in average). A total of 7,222 of the 45,540 segments were chosen in 2014, 8,017 of the 46,440 segments were chosen in 2015, 5,289 of the 42,440 segments were chosen in 2016, 4,092 of the 46,680 segments were chosen in 2017, 4,200 of the 43,580 segments were chosen in 2018, 4,000 of the 42,720 segments were chosen in 2019 and 3,900 of the 44,759 segments were chosen in 2020. Species that appeared in each segment were identified by experts and their presence-absence was recorded. Some of the segments were identified through a citizen-scientific project, “Bird Data Challenge (Fukasawa et al. 2017)”, in which we listened to audio data and prepared a species list of birds with involvement of local citizen experts. Data identified through the Bird Data Challenge was checked by authors or other experts to correct misspecifications of species. We were careful to avoid the negative impact (e.g., pressure of photographing and illegal capture) on endangered and attractive species when we made the species distribution data accessible online. We left the location ID blank and assigned the mean latitude and longitude of the study area in the presence-absence records for endangered species (i.e., species ranked VU, EN, and CR in the National or Prefectural Red List) and species attracting particular public interest (Terpsiphone atrocaudata and Halcyon coromanda).

Study Extent The study area was located in the eastern part of Fukushima Prefecture, northeastern Japan, and was enclosed within the following four sets of coordinates: (37.80137°N, 140.53747°E), (37.80136°N, 141.00048°E), (36.99588°N, 141.00048°E), and (36.99588°N, 140.53747°E). The study area contained the evacuation zone, which has been categorized into three subzones since October 2013: a zone in preparation for lifting the evacuation order (<=20 mSv/year, Zone 1), a restricted residence area (20–50 mSv/year, Zone 2), and a difficult-to-return-to zone (> 50 mSv/year, after five years the air dose rate will be > 20 mSv/year, Zone 3). Zone 1 and 2 areas have been reviewed annually, and the evacuation order was canceled at all of our sampling sites in Zone 1 and Zone 2. We set up 52 monitoring sites inside and outside the evacuation zone in 2014 (33 sites outside the evacuation zone, six sites in Zone 1, seven sites in Zone 2, and six sites in Zone 3), which were the same as the insect monitoring sites used by Yoshioka et al. (2015). After that we set up 57 monitoring sites (33 sites outside the evacuation zone, eight sites in Zone 1, ten sites in Zone 2, and six sites in Zone 3) in 2015, 55 monitoring sites (33 sites outside the evacuation zone, six sites in Zone 1, ten sites in Zone 2, and six sites in Zone 3) in 2016, 57 monitoring sites (51 sites outside the evacuation zone, 6 sites in Zone 3) in 2017, 56 monitoring sites (50 sites outside the evacuation zone, 6 sites in Zone 3) in 2018, 52 monitoring sites (46 sites outside the evacuation zone, 6 sites in Zone 3) in 2019 and 50 monitoring sites (44 sites outside the evacuation zone, 6 sites in Zone 3) in 2020. All monitoring sites were located within schoolyards (including those that had been converted to community centers) to minimize differences in the local site conditions and to examine the bird assemblages in the urban and rural landscapes that were heavily altered by land abandonment due to the nuclear plant accident.
Quality Control All species were identified by the authors or by professional experts or local citizen experts. Core members of the local citizen experts belonged to chapters of the Wild Bird Society of Japan in Fukushima Prefecture. If we could not obtain sufficient information to identify a species from acoustic data, we recorded the next highest taxonomic level (e.g., genus) that could be specified with certainty. Scientific names followed the Ornithological Society of Japan (2012). Noise including rain sound was detected in acoustic records during the monitoring, which was indicated in 'eventRemarks'.

Method step description:

  1. (1) Presence-absence records with uncertain identification of species were removed.
  2. (2) Presence-absence records were summed up as daily data.

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Fukasawa K, Mishima Y, Kumada N, Takenaka A, Yoshioka A, Katsumata K, Haga A, Kubo T, Tamaoki M (2017) Bird Data Challenge: new approach for cooperation between birders and researchers on acoustic identification. Bird Research 13: A15-A28. (in Japanese with English summary)
  2. Haselmayer J, Quinn JS (2000) A comparison of point counts and sound recording as bird survey methods in amazonian southeast Peru. The Condor 102: 887-893. DOI: doi:10.1650/0010-5422(2000)102[0887:ACOPCA]2.0.CO;2
  3. Hobson KA, Rempel RS, Greenwood H, Turnbull B, Van Wilgenburg SL (2002) Acoustic surveys of birds using electronic recordings: new potential from an omnidirectional microphone system. Wildl Soc Bull: 709-720.
  4. Klingbeil BT, Willig MR (2015) Bird biodiversity assessments in temperate forest: the value of point count versus acoustic monitoring protocols. PeerJ 3: e973. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.973
  5. Lopes MT, Gioppo LL, Higushi TT, Kaestner CA, Silla Jr CN, Koerich AL (2011) Automatic bird species identification for large number of species. Multimedia (ISM), 2011 IEEE International Symposium on: 117-122.
  6. Ornithological Society of Japan (2012) Check-list of Japanese birds: 7th revised edition. Ornithological Society of Japan, Tokyo (in Japanese)
  7. Yoshioka A, Mishima Y, Fukasawa K (2015) Pollinators and Other Flying Insects inside and outside the Fukushima Evacuation Zone. PLoS ONE 10: e0140957. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0140957

Additional Metadata

Alternative Identifiers 6fe80778-1b03-4f2c-a822-e62a998f321b
https://www.gbif.jp/ipt/resource?r=nies_aafu