Dealing with false-positive and false-negative errors about species occurrence at multiple levels

Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita; Jose Joaquin Lahoz-Monfort; Anthony R van Rooyen; Andrew R Weeks; Reid Tingley

Journal article

Dealing with false-positive and false-negative errors about species occurrence at multiple levels

Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita, Jose Joaquin Lahoz-Monfort, Anthony R van Rooyen, Andrew R Weeks, Reid Tingley

Methods in Ecology and Evolution | Wiley | Published : 2017

DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12743

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Abstract

Summary 1. Accurate knowledge of species occurrence is fundamental to a wide variety of ecological, evolutionary and conservation applications. Assessing the presence or absence of species at sites is often complicated by imperfect detection, with different mechanisms potentially contributing to false‐negative and/or false‐positive errors at different sampling stages. Ambiguities in the data mean that estimation of relevant parameters might be confounded unless additional information is available to resolve those uncertainties. 2. Here, we consider the analysis of species detection data with false‐positive and false‐negative errors at multiple levels. We develop and examine a two‐stage occup..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Gurutzeta Guillera-Arroita Author

Jose Lahoz-Monfort Author

Andrew Weeks Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We thank Adam Smart for his contribution to the case study. Museum Victoria kindly provided tissue samples that were used in the case study. G.G.A. is the recipient of a Discovery Early Career Research Award from the Australian Research Council (DE160100904). R.T. and A.R.W. are supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage Scheme (LP140100731). J.L.M. receives support from an Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP160101003).