Reliability of animal counts and implications for the interpretation of trends.

ABSTRACT: Population time series analysis is an integral part of conservation biology in the current context of global changes. To quantify changes in population size, wildlife counts only provide estimates because of various sources of error. When unaccounted for, such errors can obscure important ecological patterns and reduce confidence in the derived trend. In the case of highly gregarious species, which are common in the animal kingdom, the estimation of group size is an important potential bias, which is characterized by high variance among observers. In this context, it is crucial to quantify the impact of observer changes, inherent to population monitoring, on i) the minimum length of population time series required to detect significant trends and ii) the accuracy (bias and precision) of th

SUBMITTER: Vallecillo D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7920765 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature