In this study I evaluated the effectiveness of an acoustic recording system (SRS) for surveying tropical bird communities and species relative to traditional point count surveys. To address this goal, I compared species richness, composition and detection probability of 20 species between SRS and point counts across six tropical habitats in the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula. SRS performed in a similar fashion to point counts for estimating species richness and composition, two main features of community structure. Estimates of species richness were not significantly different between methods in any of the habitats. Although similarity in species composition between SRS and point counts was lower in coastal dunes than secondary and mature semi-evergreen forests, at least 92% of the species were shared between the two methods in all habitats. Similarly, the multi-method occupancy models demonstrated that SRS yielded detection probabilities similar to or greater than those of point counts for nearly all species across all habitats, although a few important exceptions occur for species in which SRS performed better than point counts in some habitats. Collectively my results on richness and similarity suggest that, although there are a small number of species detected exclusively by one method or the other, SRS and point counts perform equally well at detecting and identifying the majority of species in the communities I studied. Thus, the choice of a survey technique for characterizing bird communities is more of a logistic question than a monitoring technique question. Because SRS offers a logistically easier method given the lack of experienced point count technicians, SRS stands to help characterize bird communities in tropical habitats
