The first accessible introduction to the many various wildlife assessment methods! This book uses a new approach that makes the full range of methods accessible in a way that has not previously been possible. Accompanied by free, user-friendly software to get some "hands-on" experience with the methods and how they perform in different contexts.
Originally published in 1982, this reprint of the second edition of The Estimation of Animal Abundance and Related Parameters has been described as the "bible" of the field. Censuses of living populations are required for many purposes in wildlife management, fisheries and pest control and they are essential in policy making for the protection of the environment. In this book Professor Seber, one of the leading experts in the field, explains in detail the methods that have been developed by ecologists for estimating animal numbers and related parameters such as mortality and birth rates. He insists on the importance of experimental design and describes a great variety of statistical techniques that are required in analyzing the data obtained. These designs and techniques are classified for easy reference according to the particular types of problems encountered by the field worker and the kind of information that is available. The assumptions underlying practical methods in current use are fully examined, together with procedures for testing their validity. Each method is demonstrated by at least one worked example; in all there are over 90 such examples, mostly using data obtained from natural or free-ranging populations around the world. Ecologists will find this book - the first full-length treatment of its subject - a sound statistical assessment of methods which in the past were frequently developed on an intuitive basis; while applied mathematicians will benefit no less from a study of the interaction between mathematics and biology in this important branch of statistics. Field workers will be stimulated and helped by the real-life examples and the practical nature of the work. "George Seber's book became an instant classic following its publication in 1973. It dealt comprehensively with previously published research on methods for estimating abundance and demographic parameters of animal populations. Professor Seber provided detailed reviews of methods that were originally published with adequate statistical development, and he provided derivations and development for intuitive estimators that had been initially presented by ecologists. The second edition of the book was published in 1982 and included substantive additional coverage of "new" developments that had occurred since 1973. The 1982 book has become a citation classic and can be found on the bookshelf of every serious animal population ecologist and every biostatistician dealing with animal population data. For the 20 years since its publication, it has remained the only book of its kind. Many important methodological developments have occurred in animal estimation problems since 1982, but virtually all such methods represent extensions of the initial methods described by Seber (1982). Several excellent monographs and books have been written over the last 2 decades that deal in detail with particular subsets of the material in Seber (1982). What is remarkable is that these recent contributions have not superseded Seber's book, but are best viewed as supplements to his original comprehensive treatment. Thus, Seber's (1982) book can still be found on the bookshelf of every serious animal population ecologist and biostatistician. Now, in 2002, it is surrounded on the bookshelf by a handful of related books and monographs, but it has not lost its relevance or importance and remains the most detailed, comprehensive treatment of methods to estimate animal abundance and related parameters." Jim Nichols, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Laurel, MD Professor Seber, Professor Emeritus at the University of Auckland, is regarded as the world's foremost authority on statistical methods for estimating the size of animal populations. His early work on capture-recapture methods was groundbreaking and the Jolly-Seber method still forms the basis of most modern work, more than 30 years after his first paper on the method in 1962.
Measuring the abundance of individuals and the diversity of species are core components of most ecological research projects and conservation monitoring. This book brings together in one place, for the first time, the methods used to estimate the abundance of individuals in nature. The statistical basis of each method is detailed along with practical considerations for survey design and data collection. Methods are illustrated using data ranging from Alaskan shrubs to Yellowstone grizzly bears, not forgetting Costa Rican ants and Prince Edward Island lobsters. Where necessary, example code for use with the open source software R is supplied. When appropriate, reference is made to other widely used programs. After opening with a brief synopsis of relevant statistical methods, the first section deals with the abundance of stationary items such as trees, shrubs, coral, etc. Following a discussion of the use of quadrats and transects in the contexts of forestry sampling and the assessment of plant cover, there are chapters addressing line-intercept sampling, the use of nearest-neighbour distances, and variable sized plots. The second section deals with individuals that move, such as birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, etc. Approaches discussed include double-observer sampling, removal sampling, capture-recapture methods and distance sampling. The final section deals with the measurement of species richness; species diversity; species-abundance distributions; and other aspects of diversity such as evenness, similarity, turnover and rarity. This is an essential reference for anyone involved in advanced undergraduate or postgraduate ecological research and teaching, or those planning and carrying out data analysis as part of conservation survey and monitoring programmes.
Information regarding population status and abundance of rare species plays a key role in resource management decisions. Ideally, data should be collected using statistically sound sampling methods, but by their very nature, rare or elusive species pose a difficult sampling challenge. Sampling Rare or Elusive Species describes the latest sampling designs and survey methods for reliably estimating occupancy, abundance, and other population parameters of rare, elusive, or otherwise hard-to-detect plants and animals. It offers a mixture of theory and application, with actual examples from terrestrial, aquatic, and marine habitats around the world. Sampling Rare or Elusive Species is the first volume devoted entirely to this topic and provides natural resource professionals with a suite of innovative approaches to gathering population status and trend data. It represents an invaluable reference for natural resource professionals around the world, including fish and wildlife biologists, ecologists, biometricians, natural resource managers, and all others whose work or research involves rare or elusive species.
Capture-recapture methods have been used in biology and ecology for more than 100 years. However, it is only recently that these methods have become popular in the social and medical sciences to estimate the size of elusive populations such as illegal immigrants, illicit drug users, or people with a drinking problem. Capture-Recapture Methods for the Social and Medical Sciences brings together important developments which allow the application of these methods. It has contributions from more than 40 researchers, and is divided into eight parts, including topics such as ratio regression models, capture-recapture meta-analysis, extensions of single and multiple source models, latent variable models and Bayesian approaches. The book is suitable for everyone who is interested in applying capture-recapture methods in the social and medical sciences. Furthermore, it is also of interest to those working with capture-recapture methods in biology and ecology, as there are some important developments covered in the book that also apply to these classical application areas.
Our environment and natural food resources are continually coming under threat so that the monitoring of population trends is essential today. Whaling is a good example. Here politics and conservation often clash, and over the years more and more restrictions have been applied through the efforts of the International Whaling Commission in an endeavour to save some of our whale species from extinction. Localized fisheries also need to be monitored and quotas set each year. In some countries, sports fishing and hunting are popular so that information is needed about the populations being exploited in order to determine such things as the duration of hunting season and bag limits. Methods of estimating animal abundance have been developing steadily since the 1940s but over the last 20 years activity in this area has intensified and of this growth were two the subject has begun to blossom. At the centre of the authors of this book, David Anderson and Kenneth Burnham, who have widely published in this field. The need for computers in this area was soon recognized and David and Ken were joined by Jeffrey Laake who, with his computing expertise, helped to develop suitable software packages for implementing some of the new techniques. In the 1980s Stephen Buckland entered the arena and began to make his presence felt. Among other contributions, he firmly established the role of Monte Carlo and bootstrapping techniques in population estimation where the unique role of the computer could be fully exploited.
Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward reviews the science that underpins the Bureau of Land Management's oversight of free-ranging horses and burros on federal public lands in the western United States, concluding that constructive changes could be implemented. The Wild Horse and Burro Program has not used scientifically rigorous methods to estimate the population sizes of horses and burros, to model the effects of management actions on the animals, or to assess the availability and use of forage on rangelands. Evidence suggests that horse populations are growing by 15 to 20 percent each year, a level that is unsustainable for maintaining healthy horse populations as well as healthy ecosystems. Promising fertility-control methods are available to help limit this population growth, however. In addition, science-based methods exist for improving population estimates, predicting the effects of management practices in order to maintain genetically diverse, healthy populations, and estimating the productivity of rangelands. Greater transparency in how science-based methods are used to inform management decisions may help increase public confidence in the Wild Horse and Burro Program.
The first accessible introduction to the many various wildlife assessment methods! This book uses a new approach that makes the full range of methods accessible in a way that has not previously been possible. Accompanied by free, user-friendly software to get some "hands-on" experience with the methods and how they perform in different contexts.
