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An efficient acoustic density estimation method with human detectors applied to gibbons in Cambodia

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Date
19/05/2016
Author
Kidney, Darren
Rawson, Benjamin M.
Borchers, David Louis
Stevenson, Ben
Marques, Tiago A.
Thomas, Len
Funder
EPSRC
Grant ID
EP/I000917/1
Keywords
GE Environmental Sciences
QA Mathematics
QH301 Biology
NDAS
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Abstract
Some animal species are hard to see but easy to hear. Standard visual methods for estimating population density for such species are often ineffective or inefficient, but methods based on passive acoustics show more promise. We develop spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) methods for territorial vocalising species, in which humans act as an acoustic detector array. We use SECR and estimated bearing data from a single-occasion acoustic survey of a gibbon population in northeastern Cambodia to estimate the density of calling groups. The properties of the estimator are assessed using a simulation study, in which a variety of survey designs are also investigated. We then present a new form of the SECR likelihood for multi-occasion data which accounts for the stochastic availability of animals. In the context of gibbon surveys this allows model-based estimation of the proportion of groups that produce territorial vocalisations on a given day, thereby enabling the density of groups, instead of the density of calling groups, to be estimated. We illustrate the performance of this new estimator by simulation. We show that it is possible to estimate density reliably from human acoustic detections of visually cryptic species using SECR methods. For gibbon surveys we also show that incorporating observers' estimates of bearings to detected groups substantially improves estimator performance. Using the new form of the SECR likelihood we demonstrate that estimates of availability, in addition to population density and detection function parameters, can be obtained from multi-occasion data, and that the detection function parameters are not confounded with the availability parameter. This acoustic SECR method provides a means of obtaining reliable density estimates for territorial vocalising species. It is also efficient in terms of data requirements since it only requires routine survey data. We anticipate that the low-tech field requirements will make this method an attractive option in many situations where populations can be surveyed acoustically by humans.
Citation
Kidney , D , Rawson , B M , Borchers , D L , Stevenson , B , Marques , T A & Thomas , L 2016 , ' An efficient acoustic density estimation method with human detectors applied to gibbons in Cambodia ' , PLoS One , vol. 11 , no. 5 , e0155066 , pp. 1-16 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155066
Publication
PLoS One
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155066
ISSN
1932-6203
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 Kidney et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
D. Kidney was supported by an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Doctoral Training Grant studentship (EPSRC grant EP/P505097/1). B. Stevenson was supported by a studentship jointly funded by the University of St Andrews and EPSRC, through the National Centre for Statistical Ecology (EPSRC grant EP/I000917/1).
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/8842

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