What are these scores, and how do they work?

This tool compares species using five fundamental ecological and behavioural metrics, primarily recorded in the field over the course of the audit.

1. Habitat Breadth: Measures how many distinct ecological zones a species utilises. Low scores represent highly specialised animals restricted to specific environments (e.g., the Glossy Black-Cockatoo), while high scores indicate adaptable, generalist species (e.g., Superb Fairywren).

2. Vertical Stratum: Describes the primary elevation a species occupies within the environment. Ground-dwelling species (e.g., Red Fox) score low, whereas canopy-dwellers (e.g., Spotted Pardalote) push to the outer edges of the chart.

3. Acoustic Prominence: How often is this species observed via vocalisation? (Measured as the percentage of total observations which are audio-only)

4. Sociality: This is a measure of the largest observed group for a given species; effectively demonstrating its social capability/tolerance. (This method was chosen rather than calculating an average group size across all observations due to difficulty accurately judging the exact size of a group.

5. Moisture Affinity: Describes the animal’s relationship with rainfall, waterbodies, and atmospheric moisture. (*This metric will become more accurate with the addition of precipitation and local temperature/humidity measurements)