Passive acoustic monitoring of animal populations with transfer learning
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Progress in deep learning, more specifically in using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for the creation of classification models, has been tremendous in recent years. Within bioacoustics research, there has been a large number of recent studies that use CNNs. Designing CNN architectures from scratch is non-trivial and requires knowledge of machine learning. Furthermore, hyper-parameter tuning associated with CNNs is extremely time consuming and requires expensive hardware. In this paper we assess whether it is possible to build good bioacoustic classifiers by adapting and re-using existing CNNs pre-trained on the ImageNet dataset – instead of designing them from scratch, a strategy known as transfer learning that has proved highly successful in other domains. This study is a first attempt to conduct a large-scale investigation on how transfer learning can be used for passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), to simplify the implementation of CNNs and the design decisions when creating them, and to remove time consuming hyper-parameter tuning phases. We compare 12 modern CNN architectures across 4 passive acoustic datasets that target calls of the Hainan gibbon Nomascus hainanus , the critically endangered black-and-white ruffed lemur Varecia variegata , the vulnerable Thyolo alethe Chamaetylas choloensis , and the Pin-tailed whydah Vidua macroura . We focus our work on data scarcity issues by training PAM binary classification models very small datasets, with as few as 25 verified examples. Our findings reveal that transfer learning can result in up to 82% F1 score while keeping CNN implementation details to a minimum, thus rendering this approach accessible, easier to design, and speeding up further vocalisation annotations to create PAM robust models.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".