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baRulho is intended tofacilitate the implementation of (animal) sound propagation experiments,which typically aim to quantify changes in signal structure whentransmitted in a given habitat by broadcasting and re-recording animalsounds at increasing distances.

These experiments aim to answer research questions such as:

• How habitat structure has shaped the propagation properties of animalacoustic signals?
• Which acoustic features are shaped by selection for improvingpropagation?
• Which features are more degraded in different habitats?
• How far a acoustic signals can be detected?

A common sequence of steps to experimentally test hypotheses related tosound propagation is depicted in the following diagram:

Diagram depicting a typical workflow for a experiment working on signalpropagation and degradation. Nodes with black font indicate steps thatcan be conducted using baRulho functions. Blue nodes denote thefunctions that can be used at those steps.

baRulho offers functions forcritical steps in this workflow (those in black, including ‘checks’)that required acoustic data manipulation and analysis.

The main features of the package are:

• The use of loops to apply tasks through sounds referenced in aselection table (sensuwarbleR)
• The production of image files with graphic representations of sound intime and/or frequency that let users verify acoustic analyses
• The use of annotation tables as the object format to input acousticdata and annotations and to output results
• The use of parallelization to distribute tasks among several cores toimprove computational efficiency

baRulho builds upon functions anddata formats from thewarbleR andseewave packages, so someexperience with these packages is advised.

Take a look at the vignettes for an overview of the main features of thepackages:

• Align testsounds
• Quantifydegradation

Install/load the package from CRAN as follows:

# From CRAN would be# install.packages("baRulho")# load packagelibrary(baRulho)

It can also be install fromR-Universe inthis way:

install.packages("baRulho",repos="https://ropensci.r-universe.dev")

## Installing package into '/home/marce/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3'## (as 'lib' is unspecified)

To install the latest developmental version fromgithub you will need the R packageremotes:

# install remotes if not installedif (!requireNamespace("remotes")) {  install.packages("remotes")}# From githubremotes::install_github("ropensci/baRulho")# load packagelibrary(baRulho)

Further system requirements due to the dependencyseewave may be needed.Take a look athis link forinstruction on how to install/troubleshoot these external dependencies.

The packagesseewave andtuneR provide a huge varietyof functions for acoustic analysis and manipulation. They mostly work onwave objects already imported into the R environment. The packagewarbleR provides functionsto visualize and measure sounds already referenced in annotation tables,similar tobaRulho. The packageRraven facilitates theexchange of data between R andRaven sound analysissoftware (Cornell Lab ofOrnithology) and can be veryhelpful for incorporating Raven as the annotating tool into acousticanalysis workflow in R. The packageohun works on automated detection ofsound events, providing functions to diagnose and optimize detectionroutines.

Please citebaRulho as follows:

Araya-Salas M., E. Grabarczyk, M. Quiroz-Oliva, A. Garcia-Rodriguez, A.Rico-Guevara. (2023),baRulho: an R package to quantify degradation inanimal acoustic signals. bioRxiv 2023.11.22.568305.

1. Dabelsteen, T., Larsen, O. N., & Pedersen, S. B. (1993).Habitat-induced degradation of sound signals: Quantifying theeffects of communication sounds and bird location on blur ratio,excess attenuation, and signal-to-noise ratio in blackbird song.The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 93(4), 2206.

2. Marten, K., & Marler, P. (1977).Sound transmission and itssignificance for animal vocalization. Behavioral Ecology andSociobiology, 2(3), 271-290.

3. Morton, E. S. (1975).Ecological sources of selection on aviansounds. The American Naturalist, 109(965), 17-34.