Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft
Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) may be useful for conducting high-precision, low-disturbance waterbird surveys, but limited data exist on their effectiveness. We evaluated the capacity of a small UAS to census a large (>6,000 nests) coastal Common tern (Sterna hirundo) colony of which groun...
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ftrepec:oai:RePEc:plo:pone00:0122588 2023-05-15T15:56:16+02:00 Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft Dominique Chabot Shawn R Craik David M Bird https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588&type=printable unknown https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588&type=printable article ftrepec 2020-12-04T13:38:08Z Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) may be useful for conducting high-precision, low-disturbance waterbird surveys, but limited data exist on their effectiveness. We evaluated the capacity of a small UAS to census a large (>6,000 nests) coastal Common tern (Sterna hirundo) colony of which ground surveys are particularly disruptive and time-consuming. We compared aerial photographic tern counts to ground nest counts in 45 plots (5-m radius) throughout the colony at three intervals over a nine-day period in order to identify sources of variation and establish a coefficient to estimate nest numbers from UAS surveys. We also compared a full colony ground count to full counts from two UAS surveys conducted the following day. Finally, we compared colony disturbance levels over the course of UAS flights to matched control periods. Linear regressions between aerial and ground counts in plots had very strong correlations in all three comparison periods (R2 = 0.972–0.989, P Article in Journal/Newspaper Common tern Sterna hirundo RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) |
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Small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) may be useful for conducting high-precision, low-disturbance waterbird surveys, but limited data exist on their effectiveness. We evaluated the capacity of a small UAS to census a large (>6,000 nests) coastal Common tern (Sterna hirundo) colony of which ground surveys are particularly disruptive and time-consuming. We compared aerial photographic tern counts to ground nest counts in 45 plots (5-m radius) throughout the colony at three intervals over a nine-day period in order to identify sources of variation and establish a coefficient to estimate nest numbers from UAS surveys. We also compared a full colony ground count to full counts from two UAS surveys conducted the following day. Finally, we compared colony disturbance levels over the course of UAS flights to matched control periods. Linear regressions between aerial and ground counts in plots had very strong correlations in all three comparison periods (R2 = 0.972–0.989, P |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dominique Chabot Shawn R Craik David M Bird |
spellingShingle |
Dominique Chabot Shawn R Craik David M Bird Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft |
author_facet |
Dominique Chabot Shawn R Craik David M Bird |
author_sort |
Dominique Chabot |
title |
Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft |
title_short |
Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft |
title_full |
Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft |
title_fullStr |
Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft |
title_full_unstemmed |
Population Census of a Large Common Tern Colony with a Small Unmanned Aircraft |
title_sort |
population census of a large common tern colony with a small unmanned aircraft |
url |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588&type=printable |
genre |
Common tern Sterna hirundo |
genre_facet |
Common tern Sterna hirundo |
op_relation |
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122588&type=printable |
_version_ |
1766391724160057344 |