Estimating animal abundance at multiple scales by spatially explicit capture-recapture.

ABSTRACT: Information about how animal abundance varies across landscapes is needed to inform management action but is costly and time-consuming to obtain; surveys of a single population distributed over a large area can take years to complete. Surveys employing small, spatially replicated sampling units improve efficiency, but statistical estimators rely on assumptions that constrain survey design or become less reasonable as larger areas are sampled. Efficient methods that avoid assumptions about similarity of detectability or density among replicates are therefore appealing. Using simulations and data from >3500 black bears sampled on 73 independent study areas in Ontario, Canada, we (1) quantified bias induced by unmodeled spatial heterogeneity in detectability and density; (2) evaluated novel,

SUBMITTER: Howe EJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9788300 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature