Grizzly Bear Noninvasive Genetic Tagging Surveys: Estimating the Magnitude of Missed Detections.

ABSTRACT: Sound wildlife conservation decisions require sound information, and scientists increasingly rely on remotely collected data over large spatial scales, such as noninvasive genetic tagging (NGT). Grizzly bears (Ursus arctos), for example, are difficult to study at population scales except with noninvasive data, and NGT via hair trapping informs management over much of grizzly bears' range. Considerable statistical effort has gone into estimating sources of heterogeneity, but detection error-arising when a visiting bear fails to leave a hair sample-has not been independently estimated. We used camera traps to survey grizzly bear occurrence at fixed hair traps and multi-method hierarchical occupancy models to estimate the probability that a visiting bear actually leaves a hair sample with via

SUBMITTER: Fisher JT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5014381 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature