Journal article
The optimal number of surveys when detectability varies
AL Moore, MA McCarthy, KM Parris, JL Moore
Plos One | Published : 2014
Abstract
The survey of plant and animal populations is central to undertaking field ecology. However, detection is imperfect, so the absence of a species cannot be determined with certainty. Methods developed to account for imperfect detectability during surveys do not yet account for stochastic variation in detectability over time or space. When each survey entails a fixed cost that is not spent searching (e.g., time required to travel to the site), stochastic detection rates result in a trade-off between the number of surveys and the length of each survey when surveying a single site. We present a model that addresses this trade-off and use it to determine the number of surveys that: 1) maximizes t..
View full abstractGrants
Awarded by ARC Future Fellowship
Awarded by GUYASIM project
Awarded by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA)
Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge funding support from the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions and an ARC Future Fellowship to MAM (FT100100923). This study was also supported by the GUYASIM project (31032, programme operationnel FEDER 2007-2013), with financial support provided by European structural funds and has benefited from an "Investissement d9Avenir" grant managed by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (CEBA, ref. ANR-10-LABX-0025). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.