Abstracts

Presented by Beth E Ross - Email: bross5@clemson.edu

Wildlife monitoring data can be challenging to incorporate into models for statistical and ecological inference because spatio-temporal scales and data quality may vary. Surveys to monitor waterfowl are particularly challenging in that waterfowl are migratory and occur throughout multiple ecoregions during their life cycles. Given their mobile nature, waterfowl are typically monitored based on continent-wide monitoring or surveying efforts (e.g., Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey). While useful for understanding population-level changes, supplemental monitoring is needed to understand habitat use, spatio-temporal distributions, and population dynamics of waterfowl during the non-breeding season at flyway, state, and local levels. Given methods for monitoring waterfowl at finer spatial scales, opportunities exist to combine multiple data sources to better inform population estimates and habitat relationships. Our goal was to combine count data from aerial surveys with ground-based surveys to better estimate abundance of waterfowl along the coastal plain of South Carolina. We conducted ground and aerial surveys at Tom Yawkey Wildlife Center, South Carolina in January and February 2018. Our data integration model provided more precise estimates of abundance while adjusting for detection probability. We also compare abundance estimates based on visibility correction factors between ground and aerial surveys with abundance estimates from our integrated model. Lastly, we describe how additional information from other data sources (e.g., banding data or nest monitoring) could be incorporated into the model for additional inference.