Journal article
Exploring the consequences of reducing survey effort for detecting individual and temporal variability in survival
JJ Lahoz-Monfort, MP Harris, BJT Morgan, SN Freeman, S Wanless
Journal of Applied Ecology | Published : 2014
Abstract
Summary: Long-term monitoring programmes often involve substantial input of skilled staff time. In mark-recapture studies, considerable effort is usually devoted to both marking and recapturing/resighting individuals. Given increasing budgetary constraints, it is essential to streamline field protocols to minimize data redundancy while still achieving targets such as detecting trends or ecological effects. We evaluated different levels of field effort investment in marking and resighting individuals by resampling existing mark-recapture-recovery data to construct plausible scenarios of changes in field protocols. We demonstrate the method with 26 years data from a common guillemot Uria aalge..
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Awarded by EPSRC/NERC
Funding Acknowledgements
J.J.L.-M. was funded by EPSRC/NERC Grant EP/1000917/1 and by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. We thank the many people who helped with data collection on the Isle of May, particularly Mark Newell. Part of the fieldwork was funded by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee's integrated Seabird Monitoring Programme. Scottish Natural Heritage allowed us to work on the Isle of May. Ring recoveries come from the BTO Ringing Scheme, funded by a partnership of the British Trust for Ornithology, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (on behalf of Natural England, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Countryside Council for Wales and also on behalf of the Council for Nature Conservation and the Countryside in Northern Ireland), The National Parks and Wildlife Service (Ireland) and the ringers themselves. We thank the associate editor and two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier version of the paper.