10.5061/DRYAD.4FF53
Tingley, Morgan W.
University of Connecticut
The Institute for Bird Populations
Wilkerson, Robert L.
The Institute for Bird Populations
Howell, Christine A.
United States Department of Agriculture
Siegel, Rodney B.
The Institute for Bird Populations
Data from: An integrated occupancy and space-use model to predict
abundance of imperfectly detected, territorial vertebrates
Dryad
dataset
2016
Black- backed Woodpecker
wildlife habitat model
Bayesian
home range
Density
Population size
Picoides arcticus
2016-10-29T00:00:00Z
2016-10-29T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12500
31180116 bytes
1
CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
It is often highly desirable to know not only where species are likely to
occur (i.e., occupancy) but also how many individuals are supported by a
given habitat (i.e., density). For many animals, occupancy and density may
be determined by distinct ecological processes. Here we develop a novel
abundance model as the product of landscape-scale occupancy probability
and habitat-scale density given occupancy. One can conceptualize our model
as fully packing a landscape with home ranges or territories based on
habitat quality, and then subtracting territories based on a probabilistic
process that accounts for the fact that species rarely exhibit full
occupancy across heterogeneous landscapes. The model is designed to
predict abundance at fine spatial scales, using resolutions equal to or
smaller than a single home range or territory. We demonstrate this model
on the Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus), a species of
management concern linked to post-fire forests. Occupancy is derived from
a regional monitoring effort, while density given occupancy comes from a
telemetry study of variation in territory size. A Bayesian framework is
used to combine independent occupancy and home-range size models and
predict abundance of Black-backed Woodpeckers at 4 fires that burned in
2012 or 2013. Predictions are evaluated with independently collected
survey data, showing that the model is successful at predicting both
absolute abundance at fires as well as relative abundance within and among
fires. The conceptual model presents a promising new framework for
fine-scale modeling of density and abundance for other territorial yet
elusive species. Telemetry and occupancy data are widely collected for
many species, but rarely utilized in combination, and the ecological
exploration of the factors that determine occurrence versus home-range
size may provide useful biological insight. As applied to the Black-backed
Woodpecker, the model provides a tool for resource managers to explore
trade-offs in retaining burned forest habitat versus managing for other
post-fire goals, such as salvage logging or reforestation efforts that
require snag removal.
Code and data filesPlease peruse readme.rtf file for full description and
instructions.BBWO_abundance.zip
California