The influence of abundance on detectability

MA Mccarthy; JL Moore; WK Morris; KM Parris; GE Garrard; PA Vesk; L Rumpff; KM Giljohann; J Camac; S Bau; T Friend; B Harrison; B Yue

Journal article

The influence of abundance on detectability

MA Mccarthy, JL Moore, WK Morris, KM Parris, GE Garrard, PA Vesk, L Rumpff, KM Giljohann, J Camac, S Bau, T Friend, B Harrison, B Yue

OIKOS | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing | Published : 2013

DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2012.20781.x

Abstract

Plant and animal survey detection rates are important for ecological surveys, environmental impact assessment, invasive species monitoring, and modeling species distributions. Species can be difficult to detect when rare but, in general, how detection probabilities vary with abundance is unknown. We developed a new detectability model based on the time to detection of the first individual of a species. Based on this model, the predicted detection rate is proportional to a power function of abundance with a scaling exponent between zero and one that depends on clustering of individuals. We estimated the model parameters with data from three independent datasets: searches for chenopod shrub sp..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Michael McCarthy Author

Joslin Moore Author

Kirsten Parris Author

Georgia Garrard Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Environmental Monitoring and Audit Masters students and expert searchers who conducted surveys and members of the Quantitative and Applied Ecology Group who assisted in the field. We are also grateful for comments and suggestions from L. B. Marczac that substantially improved the manuscript, to the City of Melbourne for use of the Royal Park site, and to Phillip Mawditt of SERCO for help with the planting. This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP0884052), a Discovery Grant (DP0985600), and a Future Fellowship (FT100100923). Fieldwork associated with the frog data was approved by the Australian National University animal experimentation ethics committee, and conducted under the following permits: QDPI permits no. 788, 860 and 919, QNPWS permit no. 2001, QDNR permits no. 1188 and 1301, QDEH permits no. HO/000139/95/SAA and E5/000003/98/SAA, NSW NPWS scientific investigation license no. B1474 and SF NSW permits no. 5267 and 5269.