Impact of sampling with replacement in occupancy studies with spatial replication

Abstract

1. The proportion of sites occupied by a species is a state variable commonly used in ecology. Replicate surveys at sampled sites can be used to address the problem of imperfect detection to obtain an asymptotically unbiased estimator of species occupancy. Replication can be achieved in various ways, including visiting a series of spatial subunits within each surveyed site. Depending on how these spatial subunits are sampled, bias can be induced in the estimator of site occupancy. 2.This paper explores and discusses the consequences of sampling with or without replacement when using spatial replication in occupancy studies and the species is absent from some of the replicates within occupied..