How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes
Conservation of wildlife depends on precise and unbiased knowledge on the abundance and distribution of species. It is challenging to choose appropriate methods to obtain a sufficiently high detectability and spatial coverage matching the species characteristics and spatiotemporal use of the landsca...
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Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 |
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ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2072-4292/15/1/9/ 2023-08-20T04:04:44+02:00 How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes Ingrid Marie Garfelt Paulsen Åshild Ønvik Pedersen Richard Hann Marie-Anne Blanchet Isabell Eischeid Charlotte van Hazendonk Virve Tuulia Ravolainen Audun Stien Mathilde Le Moullec agris 2022-12-20 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Remote Sensing; Volume 15; Issue 1; Pages: 9 aaerial survey animal detection distance sampling helicopter monitoring strip transect Svalbard total count ungulate Text 2022 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 2023-08-01T07:53:21Z Conservation of wildlife depends on precise and unbiased knowledge on the abundance and distribution of species. It is challenging to choose appropriate methods to obtain a sufficiently high detectability and spatial coverage matching the species characteristics and spatiotemporal use of the landscape. In remote regions, such as in the Arctic, monitoring efforts are often resource-intensive and there is a need for cheap and precise alternative methods. Here, we compare an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV; quadcopter) pilot survey of the non-gregarious Svalbard reindeer to traditional population abundance surveys from ground and helicopter to investigate whether UAVs can be an efficient alternative technology. We found that the UAV survey underestimated reindeer abundance compared to the traditional abundance surveys when used at management relevant spatial scales. Observer variation in reindeer detection on UAV imagery was influenced by the RGB greenness index and mean blue channel. In future studies, we suggest testing long-range fixed-wing UAVs to increase the sample size of reindeer and area coverage and incorporate detection probability in animal density models from UAV imagery. In addition, we encourage focus on more efficient post-processing techniques, including automatic animal object identification with machine learning and analytical methods that account for uncertainties. Text Arctic Svalbard svalbard reindeer MDPI Open Access Publishing Arctic Svalbard Remote Sensing 15 1 9 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
MDPI Open Access Publishing |
op_collection_id |
ftmdpi |
language |
English |
topic |
aaerial survey animal detection distance sampling helicopter monitoring strip transect Svalbard total count ungulate |
spellingShingle |
aaerial survey animal detection distance sampling helicopter monitoring strip transect Svalbard total count ungulate Ingrid Marie Garfelt Paulsen Åshild Ønvik Pedersen Richard Hann Marie-Anne Blanchet Isabell Eischeid Charlotte van Hazendonk Virve Tuulia Ravolainen Audun Stien Mathilde Le Moullec How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes |
topic_facet |
aaerial survey animal detection distance sampling helicopter monitoring strip transect Svalbard total count ungulate |
description |
Conservation of wildlife depends on precise and unbiased knowledge on the abundance and distribution of species. It is challenging to choose appropriate methods to obtain a sufficiently high detectability and spatial coverage matching the species characteristics and spatiotemporal use of the landscape. In remote regions, such as in the Arctic, monitoring efforts are often resource-intensive and there is a need for cheap and precise alternative methods. Here, we compare an uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV; quadcopter) pilot survey of the non-gregarious Svalbard reindeer to traditional population abundance surveys from ground and helicopter to investigate whether UAVs can be an efficient alternative technology. We found that the UAV survey underestimated reindeer abundance compared to the traditional abundance surveys when used at management relevant spatial scales. Observer variation in reindeer detection on UAV imagery was influenced by the RGB greenness index and mean blue channel. In future studies, we suggest testing long-range fixed-wing UAVs to increase the sample size of reindeer and area coverage and incorporate detection probability in animal density models from UAV imagery. In addition, we encourage focus on more efficient post-processing techniques, including automatic animal object identification with machine learning and analytical methods that account for uncertainties. |
format |
Text |
author |
Ingrid Marie Garfelt Paulsen Åshild Ønvik Pedersen Richard Hann Marie-Anne Blanchet Isabell Eischeid Charlotte van Hazendonk Virve Tuulia Ravolainen Audun Stien Mathilde Le Moullec |
author_facet |
Ingrid Marie Garfelt Paulsen Åshild Ønvik Pedersen Richard Hann Marie-Anne Blanchet Isabell Eischeid Charlotte van Hazendonk Virve Tuulia Ravolainen Audun Stien Mathilde Le Moullec |
author_sort |
Ingrid Marie Garfelt Paulsen |
title |
How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes |
title_short |
How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes |
title_full |
How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes |
title_fullStr |
How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes |
title_full_unstemmed |
How Many Reindeer? UAV Surveys as an Alternative to Helicopter or Ground Surveys for Estimating Population Abundance in Open Landscapes |
title_sort |
how many reindeer? uav surveys as an alternative to helicopter or ground surveys for estimating population abundance in open landscapes |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 |
op_coverage |
agris |
geographic |
Arctic Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Svalbard |
genre |
Arctic Svalbard svalbard reindeer |
genre_facet |
Arctic Svalbard svalbard reindeer |
op_source |
Remote Sensing; Volume 15; Issue 1; Pages: 9 |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15010009 |
container_title |
Remote Sensing |
container_volume |
15 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
9 |
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1774715115641241600 |