Towards a reliable assessment of Asian elephant population parameters: the application of photographic spatial capture-recapture sampling in a priority floodplain ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: The hitherto difficult task of reliably estimating populations of wide-ranging megafauna has been enabled by advances in capture-recapture methodology. Here we combine photographic sampling with a Bayesian spatially-explicit capture-recapture (SCR) model to estimate population parameters for the endangered Asian elephant Elephas maximus in the productive floodplain ecosystem of Kaziranga National Park, India. Posterior density estimates of herd-living adult females and sub-adult males and females (herd-adults) was 0.68 elephants/km² (95% Credible Intervals, CrI = 0.56-0.81) while that of adult males was 0.24 elephants/km² (95% CrI = 0.18-0.30), with posterior density estimates highlighting spatial heterogeneity in elephant distribution. Estimates of the space-usage pa

SUBMITTER: Goswami VR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6561924 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature