Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea
Logistically demanding and expensive wildlife surveys should ideally yield defensible estimates. Here, we show how simulation can be used to evaluate alternative survey designs for estimating wildlife abundance. Specifically, we evaluate the potential of instrument-based aerial surveys (combining in...
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crroyalsociety:10.1098/rsos.150561 2024-10-06T13:46:46+00:00 Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea Conn, Paul B. Moreland, Erin E. Regehr, Eric V. Richmond, Erin L. Cameron, Michael F. Boveng, Peter L. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150561 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.150561 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsos.150561 en eng The Royal Society https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ Royal Society Open Science volume 3, issue 1, page 150561 ISSN 2054-5703 journal-article 2016 crroyalsociety https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150561 2024-09-09T06:01:27Z Logistically demanding and expensive wildlife surveys should ideally yield defensible estimates. Here, we show how simulation can be used to evaluate alternative survey designs for estimating wildlife abundance. Specifically, we evaluate the potential of instrument-based aerial surveys (combining infrared imagery with high-resolution digital photography to detect and identify species) for estimating abundance of polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea. We investigate the consequences of different levels of survey effort, flight track allocation and model configuration on bias and precision of abundance estimators. For bearded seals (0.07 animals km −2 ) and ringed seals (1.29 animals km −2 ), we find that eight flights traversing ≈7840 km are sufficient to achieve target precision levels (coefficient of variation (CV)<20%) for a 2.94×10 5 km 2 study area. For polar bears (provisionally, 0.003 animals km −2 ), 12 flights traversing ≈11 760 km resulted in CVs ranging from 28 to 35%. Estimators were relatively unbiased with similar precision over different flight track allocation strategies and estimation models, although some combinations had superior performance. These findings suggest that instrument-based aerial surveys may provide a viable means for monitoring seal and polar bear populations on the surface of the sea ice over large Arctic regions. More broadly, our simulation-based approach to evaluating survey designs can serve as a template for biologists designing their own surveys. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Chukchi Chukchi Sea polar bear Sea ice The Royal Society Arctic Chukchi Sea Royal Society Open Science 3 1 150561 |
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Open Polar |
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The Royal Society |
op_collection_id |
crroyalsociety |
language |
English |
description |
Logistically demanding and expensive wildlife surveys should ideally yield defensible estimates. Here, we show how simulation can be used to evaluate alternative survey designs for estimating wildlife abundance. Specifically, we evaluate the potential of instrument-based aerial surveys (combining infrared imagery with high-resolution digital photography to detect and identify species) for estimating abundance of polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea. We investigate the consequences of different levels of survey effort, flight track allocation and model configuration on bias and precision of abundance estimators. For bearded seals (0.07 animals km −2 ) and ringed seals (1.29 animals km −2 ), we find that eight flights traversing ≈7840 km are sufficient to achieve target precision levels (coefficient of variation (CV)<20%) for a 2.94×10 5 km 2 study area. For polar bears (provisionally, 0.003 animals km −2 ), 12 flights traversing ≈11 760 km resulted in CVs ranging from 28 to 35%. Estimators were relatively unbiased with similar precision over different flight track allocation strategies and estimation models, although some combinations had superior performance. These findings suggest that instrument-based aerial surveys may provide a viable means for monitoring seal and polar bear populations on the surface of the sea ice over large Arctic regions. More broadly, our simulation-based approach to evaluating survey designs can serve as a template for biologists designing their own surveys. |
author2 |
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Conn, Paul B. Moreland, Erin E. Regehr, Eric V. Richmond, Erin L. Cameron, Michael F. Boveng, Peter L. |
spellingShingle |
Conn, Paul B. Moreland, Erin E. Regehr, Eric V. Richmond, Erin L. Cameron, Michael F. Boveng, Peter L. Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea |
author_facet |
Conn, Paul B. Moreland, Erin E. Regehr, Eric V. Richmond, Erin L. Cameron, Michael F. Boveng, Peter L. |
author_sort |
Conn, Paul B. |
title |
Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea |
title_short |
Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea |
title_full |
Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea |
title_fullStr |
Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea |
title_full_unstemmed |
Using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the Chukchi Sea |
title_sort |
using simulation to evaluate wildlife survey designs: polar bears and seals in the chukchi sea |
publisher |
The Royal Society |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150561 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.150561 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsos.150561 |
geographic |
Arctic Chukchi Sea |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Chukchi Sea |
genre |
Arctic Chukchi Chukchi Sea polar bear Sea ice |
genre_facet |
Arctic Chukchi Chukchi Sea polar bear Sea ice |
op_source |
Royal Society Open Science volume 3, issue 1, page 150561 ISSN 2054-5703 |
op_rights |
https://royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.150561 |
container_title |
Royal Society Open Science |
container_volume |
3 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
150561 |
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1812175086726152192 |