Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus)
Visual line transect (VLT) surveys are central to the monitoring and study of marine mammals. However, for cryptic species such as deep diving cetaceans VLT surveys alone suffer from problems of low sample sizes and availability bias where animals below the surface are not available to be detected....
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:1f4d6187a4704c72b5dfac579f17d6e2 2024-01-07T09:46:02+01:00 Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) Douglas B. Sigourney Annamaria DeAngelis Danielle Cholewiak Debra Palka 2023-09-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15850 https://doaj.org/article/1f4d6187a4704c72b5dfac579f17d6e2 EN eng PeerJ Inc. https://peerj.com/articles/15850.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/15850/ https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359 doi:10.7717/peerj.15850 2167-8359 https://doaj.org/article/1f4d6187a4704c72b5dfac579f17d6e2 PeerJ, Vol 11, p e15850 (2023) Data integration Multiple data streams Passive acoustic monitoring Line transect data Distance sampling Mark-recapture Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15850 2023-12-10T01:51:29Z Visual line transect (VLT) surveys are central to the monitoring and study of marine mammals. However, for cryptic species such as deep diving cetaceans VLT surveys alone suffer from problems of low sample sizes and availability bias where animals below the surface are not available to be detected. The advent of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) technology offers important opportunities to observe deep diving cetaceans but statistical challenges remain particularly when trying to integrate VLT and PAM data. Herein, we present a general framework to combine these data streams to estimate abundance when both surveys are conducted simultaneously. Secondarily, our approach can also be used to derive an estimate of availability bias. We outline three methods that vary in complexity and data requirements which are (1) a simple distance sampling (DS) method that treats the two datasets independently (DS-DS Method), (2) a fully integrated approach that applies a capture-mark recapture (CMR) analysis to the PAM data (CMR-DS Method) and (3) a hybrid approach that requires only a subset of the PAM CMR data (Hybrid Method). To evaluate their performance, we use simulations based on known diving and vocalizing behavior of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). As a case study, we applied the Hybrid Method to data from a shipboard survey of sperm whales and compared estimates to a VLT only analysis. Simulation results demonstrated that the CMR-DS Method and Hybrid Method reduced bias by >90% for both abundance and availability bias in comparison to the simpler DS -DS Method. Overall, the CMR-DS Method was the least biased and most precise. For the case study, our application of the Hybrid Method to the sperm whale dataset produced estimates of abundance and availability bias that were comparable to estimates from the VLT only analysis but with considerably higher precision. Integrating multiple sources of data is an important goal with clear benefits. As a step towards that goal we have developed a novel framework. Results ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Physeter macrocephalus Sperm whale Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles PeerJ 11 e15850 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Data integration Multiple data streams Passive acoustic monitoring Line transect data Distance sampling Mark-recapture Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 |
spellingShingle |
Data integration Multiple data streams Passive acoustic monitoring Line transect data Distance sampling Mark-recapture Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Douglas B. Sigourney Annamaria DeAngelis Danielle Cholewiak Debra Palka Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) |
topic_facet |
Data integration Multiple data streams Passive acoustic monitoring Line transect data Distance sampling Mark-recapture Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 |
description |
Visual line transect (VLT) surveys are central to the monitoring and study of marine mammals. However, for cryptic species such as deep diving cetaceans VLT surveys alone suffer from problems of low sample sizes and availability bias where animals below the surface are not available to be detected. The advent of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) technology offers important opportunities to observe deep diving cetaceans but statistical challenges remain particularly when trying to integrate VLT and PAM data. Herein, we present a general framework to combine these data streams to estimate abundance when both surveys are conducted simultaneously. Secondarily, our approach can also be used to derive an estimate of availability bias. We outline three methods that vary in complexity and data requirements which are (1) a simple distance sampling (DS) method that treats the two datasets independently (DS-DS Method), (2) a fully integrated approach that applies a capture-mark recapture (CMR) analysis to the PAM data (CMR-DS Method) and (3) a hybrid approach that requires only a subset of the PAM CMR data (Hybrid Method). To evaluate their performance, we use simulations based on known diving and vocalizing behavior of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). As a case study, we applied the Hybrid Method to data from a shipboard survey of sperm whales and compared estimates to a VLT only analysis. Simulation results demonstrated that the CMR-DS Method and Hybrid Method reduced bias by >90% for both abundance and availability bias in comparison to the simpler DS -DS Method. Overall, the CMR-DS Method was the least biased and most precise. For the case study, our application of the Hybrid Method to the sperm whale dataset produced estimates of abundance and availability bias that were comparable to estimates from the VLT only analysis but with considerably higher precision. Integrating multiple sources of data is an important goal with clear benefits. As a step towards that goal we have developed a novel framework. Results ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Douglas B. Sigourney Annamaria DeAngelis Danielle Cholewiak Debra Palka |
author_facet |
Douglas B. Sigourney Annamaria DeAngelis Danielle Cholewiak Debra Palka |
author_sort |
Douglas B. Sigourney |
title |
Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) |
title_short |
Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) |
title_full |
Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) |
title_fullStr |
Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) |
title_full_unstemmed |
Combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) |
title_sort |
combining passive acoustic data from a towed hydrophone array with visual line transect data to estimate abundance and availability bias of sperm whales (physeter macrocephalus) |
publisher |
PeerJ Inc. |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15850 https://doaj.org/article/1f4d6187a4704c72b5dfac579f17d6e2 |
genre |
Physeter macrocephalus Sperm whale |
genre_facet |
Physeter macrocephalus Sperm whale |
op_source |
PeerJ, Vol 11, p e15850 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://peerj.com/articles/15850.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/15850/ https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359 doi:10.7717/peerj.15850 2167-8359 https://doaj.org/article/1f4d6187a4704c72b5dfac579f17d6e2 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15850 |
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PeerJ |
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11 |
container_start_page |
e15850 |
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