Assessing the effects of survey-inherent disturbance on primate detectability: Recommendations for line transect distance sampling.

ABSTRACT: Habitat destruction and over-hunting are increasingly threatening the arboreal primates of Central Africa. To establish effective conservation strategies, accurate assessments of primate density, abundance, and spatial distribution are required. To date, the method of choice for primate density estimation is line transect distance sampling. However, primates fleeing human observers violate methodological assumptions, biasing the accuracy of resulting estimates. In this study, we used line transect distance sampling to study five primate species along 378 km of transects in Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo. We tested the effect of different levels of survey-inherent disturbance (i.e., cutting) on the number of observed (i) primate groups, and (ii) individuals within g

SUBMITTER: Bessone M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9842571 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature