Temporally adaptive sampling: a case study in rare species survey design with marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum).

ABSTRACT: Improving detection rates for elusive species with clumped distributions is often accomplished through adaptive sampling designs. This approach can be extended to include species with temporally variable detection probabilities. By concentrating survey effort in years when the focal species are most abundant or visible, overall detection rates can be improved. This requires either long-term monitoring at a few locations where the species are known to occur or models capable of predicting population trends using climatic and demographic data. For marbled salamanders (Ambystoma opacum) in Massachusetts, we demonstrate that annual variation in detection probability of larvae is regionally correlated. In our data, the difference in survey success between years was far more important than the d

SUBMITTER: Charney ND 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4370673 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature