About

Reporting Bat Survey Data complements the data science chapter in the 4th Edition of the Bat Survey Guidelines. Unlike the guidelines it has the R code making the analysis; which can be copied and used.

These web pages are written by Steve Markham, Director and Data Scientist at Marquis & Lord Ltd. Over my 40-year career I have developed and used software applications in water management and more recently, the last 15 years; applied data science to a wide range of projects using the R software environment. I have held a Natural England Roost Visitors Licence since 1997, and Survey and Research Licence Level 2; undertaking numerous commercial bat projects and voluntary bat work, including being a Trustee of the Bat Conservation Trust from 2012 to 2021. As a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society I advocate the importance of statistics and data. As a member of the editorial board of all editions of the Bat Survey Guidelines1, I encourage ecologists to make the most of their bat survey data; these web pages hopefully make it easier to do this, and more rewarding - its good for bats!

This web site also introduces the iBats package2. iBats is a package with a range of functions that hopefully enhances and smooths the data science of bat data collected from bat detectors post sound identification.

Finally a special thanks to the bat workers who have put up with my incessant data talk, especially: Amanda, Anna, Kevin, Liat, Phil, Richard and Suzy. Plus Lisa who introduced me to GTD and better time management.

Footnotes

  1. There have been four editions (2007, 2012, 2016 and 2023), For the 4th edition (due 2023), the sections on bat survey design and data analysis were completely revised to incorporate a data science approach to bat surveys: tidy data, data aggregation, visualization, statistical analysis, and reproducibility. The current version of the Bat Survey Guidelines can be found here: https://www.bats.org.uk/resources/guidance-for-professionals/bat-surveys-for-professional-ecologists-good-practice-guidelines-3rd-edition↩︎

  2. the iBats package is held on GitHub: https://github.com/Nattereri/iBats↩︎