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Roar Data: Redefining a Lion's Roar Using Machine Learning

delete2025-11-20
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OA
AI
J
Jonathan Growcott *
A
Alex L. Lobora
A
Andrew Markham
C
Charlotte E. Searle
J
Johan Wahlström
M
Matthew Wijers
B
Benno I. Simmons
DOI:10.1002/ece3.72474delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
For territorial advertisement and intra-pride communication African lions emit a roaring bout, of which one component, is their iconic roar. The full-throated roar of a lion has recently been shown to be a unique and individually identifiable signature. At the same time, the frequency of large-scale passive acoustic monitoring surveys has increased. As such, a lion's roar may soon become a useful tool to count individuals and estimate population density, to supplement traditional survey techniques. Currently, selecting full-throated roars is heavily dependent on expert inference and is therefore subject to human-induced bias. We propose a data-driven approach to automatically classify lions' full-throated roars from the other vocalisations that constitute a roaring bout. By using two-state Gaussian Hidden-Markov Models, we also demonstrate that two types of roars exist within a lion's roaring bout-a full-throated roar and a newly named intermediary roar-and these can be classified at an accuracy of 84.7%. We further demonstrate that using simple metrics to describe lion vocalisations-maximum frequency (Hz) and vocalisation length (s)-and K-means clustering is sufficient to classify lion call types, at a high accuracy (95.4%), and that using data-driven predicted full-throated roars results in an improved ability to identify individuals (F1-score 0.87 vs. manual full-throated roar classification 0.80). Here, we establish an easy-to-understand and implement process that will reduce the knowledge gap and make passive acoustic monitoring more accessible in a field currently dominated by other monitoring techniques (e.g., camera surveys), paving the way for novel research.
Keywords:
PANTHERA-LEO
ACOUSTIC FEATURES
FEMALE LIONS
IDENTIFICATION
COMMUNICATION
POPULATION
FRAMEWORK
TOOL
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Journal

E
Ecology and Evolution
IF:
2.3
Papers:
1.5K
Citations:
0

Organization

U
University of Exeter
Scholars:
2.0W
Papers: 2.1W
Citations: 3.6W
U
university of oxford
Scholars:
9.7W
Papers: 8.6W
Citations: 137